


The Kitchen Thieves (and the Kitchen Herself)

by Pie (potteresque_ire)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Harry Potter, Farmer Draco Malfoy, H/D Food Fair 2018, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, House guardian spirits, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, POV Original Character, Post-Hogwarts, Recluse Harry Potter, Romance, Sentient Kitchen, The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible, Thief Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-19 14:19:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 67,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16536206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteresque_ire/pseuds/Pie
Summary: In a deserted cottage miles away from Hogsmeade, two young spirits waited for a new owner to call the place home. One day, Auror Harry Potter bought the cottage. One evening, farm wizard Draco Malfoy showed up to spend the night with Harry...and steal a pepper shaker from the kitchen. Maybe Kate can tell you all about them? She’s the spirit who looks after the kitchen, and she’s got quite a bit to say…





	1. Prologue: Kate and the House

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[141](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_uQJlIb5C6nLnMg8VrUUnrKtyx16is1FLbyvoxLEik/edit): Sentient Kitchen  
> Sentient kitchen looks over Draco and Harry through their many firsts throughout their relationship from first getting together to getting proposed to
> 
> Warnings/Content Notes: This fic was written from the POV of an original character, a young, inexperienced kitchen guardian spirit who gave the kitchen its sentience. Contains non-graphic mentions of homophobia (in the form of hate mail) and death of original characters and minor book characters). The world outside the kitchen wasn't a kind place—with the Ministry being the worst of it all—and the angst of the story largely stemmed from Harry and Draco trying to navigate this world…while being hopelessly in love with each other. (Happy ending though! I promise!)
> 
> Much gratitude and love to my wonderful betas, tdcat (@tdcatsblog) and magpie_fngrl (@magpiefngrl), for their guidance, meticulous work, and encouragement. And also, for coming to my rescue up till the very last minute—yes, I did notice the timestamps on which your edits were done; you two were staying up late for this!—after I'd spent much of the fest writing period hogging the draft to myself. Thank you, you wonderful human beings. <3
> 
> I'd also like to thank the mods of 2018 hd_fan_fair—phoenixacid, sassy_cissa, and kitty_fic—for their infinite patience and cheerleading—this fic wouldn't have made it to the Apparition point without your all-round awesomeness. \o/
> 
> To my dear Sherry (foularcadebanana): Thank you so much for the prompt! The sentient home concept has given rise to many beautiful fics in this fandom, and I hope I've introduced a little something new, a little something fun to the concept. I apologise if the outcome isn't quite the story you've imagined, but I hope you'll enjoy it regardless!

Hello!

Please, don’t be scared! I’m not a ghost, or anything from beyond the veil. I’m made from clay too, just like you humans! Look, I even have an arm to show for it. That’s fresh clay, I know, and you don’t look like that, and the rest of me doesn’t look like that. But see? This arm works for me totally fine because the rest of me is really just clay too.

So, please, don’t be scared!

Oh, I should introduce myself. My name is Kate, and I’m a house spirit. No, not the Gryffindor Slytherin chant kind. I simply watch over the house. The kitchen, specifically, for me. I’m one of the two spirits in this cottage—Brad is the other one, who watches over the slumber areas.

I understand if this comes as a shock to you! You must be wondering, _oh, but I’ve been in loads of other houses before, so how come I’ve never heard from a house spirit?_ The answer is quite simple, really. We house spirits derive our magic from the people who live here, who use their magic to build a home for themselves. I can speak in a language you understand because the two wizards calling this place home right now are exceptionally powerful, because they’ve put so much of themselves in the beams and pillars and cabinets and stoves and oven and iceboxes that I’ve gained a skill or two too, like talking to non-spirits like you. But as I said, please don’t be afraid, because you’ve already heard from us kitchen spirits before. Have you noticed the low hum from the oven? The dull _pop_ when a ring of flames comes to life? The _drip, drip, drip_ from the tap you think needs tightening? That’s all us, actually. Good house spirits do that. They watch over everything in their area, don’t change the course of things that are meant to be…except sometimes, maybe, they give what they want to see a little nudge. Brad is really good at this—at being invisible, inaudible, that is. _If the walls could talk_ , Muggles have said. Well, Brad can, he just doesn’t. Whereas I can’t help myself. I like people, and I’m too clumsy to hide my nudges anyway.

Who are the powerful wizards living here, you ask? See the couple fighting over a bicycle wheel by the threshold? That’s them. Harry and Draco.

Oh, please be careful! Are you all right? The chairs here, I know they can be a bit rickety. Every one of them is decades old, you know? And I’ve surprised you, haven’t I? But yes! Potter is Harry’s surname. It’s what Draco used to call him, too. He’s a living legend? Really? That … I can’t say for sure. I’ve known Harry is famous, of course. Some sort of a hero. Flocks of owls have knocked on my window since he moved in, and I’ve seen him on the front page of the _Prophet_ loads of times. There are also those crazy calendars of him that Draco loves to bring home. But I’m not the one to ask about what’s going on in the outside world. You see, I don’t really go out much…

Sorry, lame joke. You know I’m bound to this kitchen, right? I’m not supposed to see or hear anything beyond these walls. Sometimes I do, a little, these days, but I’m not supposed to. So, if and when, this kitchen is gone, I’ll be too. Yes, that means it’s a bit of an occupational hazard to have Harry and Draco here. The way they are, the way they love, the way they fight. But I wouldn’t trade them for anyone else, not even Elaine and Alfred who’d been here for sixty some years before them…

And it’s more than because Harry is good looking! Seriously! Please, don’t listen to Brad. He teases me. I’d say he’s jealous; he looks more like Draco and…

Wait. Why do you make faces too when I mention Draco? Why do people do that before they get to know him? That’s a bit unfair, I dare say. Draco can be a smidge unpredictable, and I wouldn’t let him touch the stove if I could help it, but he’s a good person, sweet in his own way.

Pardon? He used to be a…what’s that again? Ha! Please, don’t be silly! Death isn’t food, and I say that with good authority, having spent my life here in the kitchen. Draco just shared a treacle tart with Harry before the fight, in case you wonder what Draco actually eats. He loves treacle tarts. They both do.

I’m not making much sense here, am I? I’m so sorry. Company is few and far between for a spirit like me! Maybe I’ll start from the beginning—well, not _all_ the way from the beginning, since this cottage is over a hundred years old and the way I talk, it’ll be another hundred before I’m done. Maybe…I’ll start from, I don’t know, the day Harry bought this place?

It was such a _good_ day. You see, Harry is only the third owner of the house. For the forty-some years after Elaine left, people have thought the cottage was haunted…

And it was really all my fault.

 

 


	2. B.D. (Before Draco)

It was just after Christmas, I remember, the first time Harry visited. It was cold and dreary and I was sleeping. I was sleeping a lot those days. My magic had been depleted for far longer than the house had been empty. You see, Elaine only cooked sparingly after Alfred passed away. Her heart wasn’t in it at all, either. Alfred used to cook with her. He could use magic; she could not.

Brad shook me on my shoulder. Oh, just to be clear—he wasn’t Brad to me yet at the time. House spirits had no names; I used to call him _You_ , and he called me _You_ , too. He was my Himly spirit, and I, his Herly spirit. We wouldn’t have names until Harry gave us one.

But, just for the sake of clarity, let’s say my name was Kate all along, and his name, Brad. Okay?

Good.

Where was I? Right. Brad was doing better than I was because the bedroom was where Elaine had spent most of her final hours in this cottage, lying in bed and weeping. Her magic had never been gone; it had just been dormant, as it was for Squibs. And with her magic, he’d caught her sunken cheeks too, the dark rings under her eyes. He looked positively maudlin all the time.

I was jolted wide awake when I saw Harry coming into the kitchen. Not gonna lie, my first thought was, _who’s this dashing, handsome bloke here?_ His robe was impeccably tailored, its red deep and rich, and the silver badge on the lapel gleamed even without a sun in the house. Oh, excuse me, there was sun all right—it was in his skin, bronze and sun-kissed. His jaw was square, and his eyes were green like the freshest herbs of the summer. His hair was wild, but a good kind of wild, like how Muggle models look on their magazines. I didn’t mind the glasses at all, either! Featherlight lens and stylish frame aside, Alfred and Elaine had both worn them—Alfred, to read the _Prophet_ to Elaine, and Elaine, to patch an old sweater of Alfred’s. There was something homely about them, about the faces wearing them, too.

Harry surveyed the kitchen, and that was when I became aware of my awful appearance. I’d neglected it for decades! The windows were half broken, half covered with grime. A thick crust of grey carpeted the counter, the appliances and the floor; it broke and the dust flew at every step Harry took. But the walls were the worst of them all. They were black. Scorched. Intruders had broken in soon after the house had been left empty. To perform exorcism, they’d said. They’d lit a fire and chanted nonsense while dancing in the kitchen, the way they thought Elaine had on her last evening here before uniformed people from a Muggle asylum carted her away.

You see…they didn’t understand. They didn’t know that I was just trying to make her happy. With the flames on the stove, the scent of Alfred’s favourite pot roast in the air, the sound of water laving on the dishes, Elaine let me play a trick on her mind. She let me make-believe that Alfred was still there in her arms, and she danced with her eyes closed like she’d had with her husband when music had drifted in from their wireless in the living room. She didn’t know a stranded Muggle was nearby, watching, terrified, thinking she was possessed…

She never came back from the asylum. No one ever came to _Accio_ her things. She was a Squib; she and Alfred had built a home miles away from the nearest village for a reason. The youngsters who came to torch away the spirits didn’t dare to move anything, either; they weren’t as confident with their exorcistical capabilities as they seemed, after all…

That was why Harry could stare at the vase in the corner, with the dried Grass-of-Parnassus inside it. That was why he could squint at the photo of the Muggle Queen shaking hands with the Minister of Magic on the 1959 calendar and frown at the dirty plate on the kitchen table, with a fork and knife still stacked neatly on top. He looked around again, searching for more clues as to why time had frozen in this place. I would have felt indignant, annoyed at being treated like a crime scene if his eyes weren’t so _nice_ to look at.

Then he reached out, and the pad of his fingers gave the wooden surface a swipe.

I shuddered.

 _Fire magic!_ My mind screamed. This gorgeous wizard here was filled to the brim with fire magic!

Ah, I should explain what I mean. You see, every house turned a loving home is blessed by the Elements. House spirits are born of these elements, and they take care of them. I’m the fire and water of this cottage, and Brad, the wind and earth. That’s a bit unusual—most kitchen spirits are fire and earth combined. The earth subdues the fire, like in the hearths and bricks ovens. Earth isn’t my element though, so my fire is loud and excitable until I get a douse of water, which sizzles and…is just as loud and excitable. Brad, meanwhile, is the quiet one; the wind whispers, and the earth makes no noise. But he’s stronger, more mature and steadfast, because the magic of every wizard has an elemental leaning and Alfred’s was earth and Elaine’s was wind, and over the years they’d kept him better nourished—just a smidge more so. Not that I would ever be jealous of Brad for something like that, but it was an excellent excuse to get him to be extra nice to me. I’d wondered often though, how it feels to have a dweller’s magic matching my own…

 _It’s not all that cracked up to be_ , Brad had said, smiling with those shadows under his eyes.

Back to the kitchen, to Harry who, much to my trepidation, seemed to feel my shudder. The frown line between his eyes deepened, he tilted his head and watched his fingers as they swiped across the table top again.

Shudder was inadequate for a verb for this time. I quaked. The rush of energy coursing through me was enough to shake the beams and pillars holding the cottage up, and my face felt hot enough to ignite a hundred…no, make that a thousand…fires.

Fires… Ignite… Oh no!

I jumped at the realisation, rushed to the metal brackets on the stovetops. I blew at them, fanned them frantically with both of my hands. _Please don’t burn up_ , I chanted, _please don’t_. _I want this stranger to fall desperately in love with this place. I want him to move in, by midnight, with everything he had—his clothes and his furniture and his photos and his crups, and call it his home sweet home by sunrise…_

Harry’s eyes widened before a very sweaty me. They swept across the stove top, then dropped and stared at the oven screen, which was showing off the gold of a new flame behind the door.

 _Oh, crap_.

He didn’t flinch, though. He approached the oven slowly, his hand in his wand pocket. Then he crouched on one knee and peered into the fire inside.

His attention…my cheek flamed even more, and my heart was beating fast enough to make a dozen omelettes. I willed myself to stop the fire. I willed myself to pretend the kitchen was cold and deserted and ordinary, still like the earth, quiet like the wind.

But Brad, I was not. I gave up and set my magic free, let it meet him via his hand on the oven handle. He closed his eyes, hummed softly, then opened them slowly. He was reading the magic. He was reading me.

_Please, please like me._

“Sir?” A gruff voice sounded at the doorway. Harry turned towards it, then turned to the oven again. His brows furrowed, and a decision was made, I could tell that from his eyes. He pulled out his wand and waved, gently extinguishing my oven flame.

I didn’t feel put out. I felt…caressed, like his magic was smoothing my back, telling me to keep calm, to keep quiet.

He stood up, just in time for the other man to step in. This man wore a robe too, a grey number, but it looked like a piece of tablecloth draped over him. He waddled—there was no better word for it—and the same silver badge as Harry’s gleamed on his chest.

“May I answer any questions?” The man asked, the fakest smile plastered onto his round, jowly face. He looked like he was about to drool at the sight of Harry.

I wondered if he fancied Harry, too. I would forgive his tablecloth for that.

“Yes,” Harry said. He returned a smile, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes…didn’t even reach his nose. He didn’t like the man. “Is there anything about this place I should know about? Rogue magic sightings?” His eyes flickered at the scorch mark on the wall. “Crimes, other suspicious events recorded on the property record?”

The man blinked, and blinked and blinked and blinked. His weight shifted from one foot to the other, and shifted, and shifted again. Then he started to ramble, most of what he said lost on me. Something about him being just an employee at the Appraisal Office and he didn’t have the parchment with him and the Ministry would never reclaim properties with _histories_ or it probably wouldn’t but really he wasn’t the person to ask, he really was just there to give a house tour to whom he thought was a senile witch looking for a retirement home and he didn’t even pick the house, the office did but if sir was so kind as to spread a good word about him he would forever be grateful…

Harry’s eyes were cold as the January outside when the man was done. The man didn’t notice. He was too busy wiping off the sweat on his forehead. Big, fat drops of sweat, splattering on my floor.

“So the answer is no?” Harry asked. His voice was low, a little hoarse, a lot dangerous. I would swoon if I could.

The man opened his mouth again. Harry saw in it another round of rubbish, perhaps. He held out a palm and sighed. “I’ll take it,” he said, “at the price you offered my Polyjuice. You know, that senile witch? Not a sickle more, not a sickle less.”

 

 

*~*~*~*

By Autumn, my fantasy of Harry enlivening this cottage and its house spirits was as old as the 1959 calendar on the wall.

He moved in soon after he’d bought the place. He brought only clothes—no crups, no furniture, no photos, not even a broom. Brad said everything—unshrunken, too—fitted in his rucksack. The next day, Harry repaired the windows; I’d soon see the daily swarm of owls looking for him. He ran the tap until the water was clear, _Scourgified_ the decades-old dust and grime. But that was the extent of care he put in his new home. He never cooked, not even an egg for breakfast, opting instead for leftovers and disgusting Muggle pre-packaged foods, cereal bars and yoghurt cups and the like. The tap water found more use in cleaning his wounds from his job than for drinking. The old vase on the counter was pushed to a safe corner. The dried flower remained though, stooped against its ledge. The dirty plate and cutleries were washed clean, then abandoned with the other utensils in the cupboard. Queen Elizabeth and Wilhemina Tuft watched over the fresh pages of the _Prophet_ and _The Times_ , the notes Harry took on the ongoing wars in the wizarding and Muggle worlds, their smiles and clasped hands frozen with time.

But I still believed in Harry. His magic hadn’t changed at all; it was still so powerful, so, so gentle. I still sighed at his every touch, even if it was just to throw away an empty curry carton, or open the icebox for a snack, which occurred mostly in the middle of the night. He still looked positively edible then, very oven fire worthy, his tanned biceps tight against the sleeves of a white T-shirt, the contours of his muscles and…other things showing through those grey joggers. But his eyes were red-rimmed, and sometimes his cheeks were wet, and sometimes he didn’t go back to bed again but sat at the table to take more notes from the newspapers, or make a show of doing that, drawing circles on the words he’d written before. Sometimes, he fell asleep on the same spot where Elaine’s dirty plate used to sit. The night was cold, and I’d light a ring of flames on the stove to keep him warm. I’d twist the tap on, just a smidge, and watch the trickle of water ease the twisting and turning of his head on the table.

Brad had used to quirk his lips in amusement when I confessed to him all the things I’d done for Harry. But not for long, for soon he realised they were only making me more miserable, making me wish for time travel back to when I’d slept all day long, when I’d had no energy for futile hopes and even more futile heartbreaks. He let me cry in his arms the day Harry pulled out a kitchen knife and chopped dittany for an ugly gash on his thigh. _He can cook if he can cut like that_ , I choked out to Brad between sobs; I was so upset, so exhausted from the sight of blood, _he just doesn’t want to. He just doesn’t want to make a home here_.

Brad petted me and smoothed my hair. _You share his magic_ , he said, his voice cracked from disuse. _He’s unhappy_. _Try to_ _not let him get to you_. I looked into his eyes, and still saw Elaine’s sunken ones in her last years. I pressed my head against his chest, and heard the echoes of the deep, rumbling earthquake from his anger at Alfred’s malediction. Elaine, the Wind. Alfred, the Earth. I nodded.

But things didn’t get better from there. They got worse—for Harry soon began to bring random men home.

It all started with The Argument. I couldn’t hear it, and neither could Brad; it happened elsewhere in the house, and between Harry and Hermione, half of the only people who’d ever visited the cottage. Hermione and Ron were a couple, you see, and they came here in a Muggle car because Harry had never re-opened the Floo or re-activated the cottage as an Apparition point. Ron was a gentle soul, an Earth despite his appearance suggesting Fire all the way, from the red hair to the flame-blue eyes. He brought Harry home-made, delicious food every time and made Harry laugh in a way that made me stupidly hopeful again, that Harry actually didn’t mind company or a home as much as he seemed. Hermione, meanwhile…

I’d been terrified of Hermione.

Like Harry, she’d sensed my presence the first time she was here. At least I knew why for Harry—a fire in the oven was not so subtle a hint, wasn’t it? But I had no idea how I’d given myself away to Hermione, what made her demand an explanation of why Harry thought this place was a good idea. Maybe it was the scorch marks on the wall that Harry had never bothered to remove, that had only seemed darker now that the rest of the kitchen was clean. _Hadn’t you had enough trouble for a lifetime?_ Hermione had asked. Hadn’t he moved so far away because he’d wanted peace, he’d wanted to be left alone? There was nothing peaceful, nothing non-troublesome or non-troubling, of finding company in something that could think but didn’t have a visible brain…

 _Oy_ , Ron said. _You stole my dad’s line_.

Harry was sitting at the table, in nice jeans and a nicer shirt, bone white and crisp. He wasn’t terrified of Hermione, of course, but there was something about her that made him look younger. His hands were clasped in front of his mouth, his elbows rested on the table.

 _They’re friendly_ , he answered.

 _They_ , Hermione repeated.

Harry nodded. _One here. One upstairs in the bedroom_.

Since then, Hermione badgered Harry to sell the cottage. This place, she said, this lifestyle was unhealthy for him. _Look,_ she exclaimed once, while she was trying to make tea with Elaine’s kettle and teabags she brought from her house. _Even the stove doesn’t work!_ Harry came over, and I lit the prettiest flames when he twisted the knob, bright with every shade from the richest blue to the brightest gold. _Works for me_. Harry shrugged. He glanced at the oven and a corner of his lips lifted. A not-so-secret, gorgeous smile just for me.

I enjoyed Hermione’s visits a lot more after that day.

But her badgering didn’t stop. Harry listened, and if they were in the kitchen, I could feel his bare foot kicking lightly against the cabinet under the counter. His eyes drifted every now and then towards _The Times_ in front of him, conveniently pre-opened to the page with crossword puzzles.

Harry really liked Hermione and respected her, though, I could tell. He might seem tired of her lectures, but he always slept better after she and Ron visited, and he made tea, too, sometimes, from the teabags he stole from his workplace. I knew, because the Ministry stamped its emblem all over them. Why they bothered, I didn’t know; the tea had the fragrance and the flavour of a wet Kneazle left overnight in a can of flobberworms. But Harry drank it, and I cooperated. He was making food in the kitchen. His fire magic brushed against mine as he set the kettle on the metal bracket…

So I hadn’t expected The Argument. And from what I could tell, neither did Harry, nor Ron, nor perhaps Hermione herself. As I said, I didn’t catch the details of what it was about.

But I could guess…

The flurry of owls that had come the week before was even more insane than usual, enough to cast a shadow over the cottage. The pink, heart-shaped envelopes had been replaced with red, square ones. Howlers.

I thought Harry would throw them away without opening them. He’d done that with the heart-shaped ones, hadn’t he? But he opened the howlers, one by one, while sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor. These howlers were only the ones that’d come in through the kitchen window; still, by the time he was done, I could no longer hear a single word of the things they were screaming over each other.

Well, a few words. _Shirt lifter. Poof. Faggot._

Harry didn’t look angry. He smiled—a small smile, sad on the edges, but it was real. “If only I knew how little it’d take to get people to dislike me,” he whispered.

I realised he was talking to me.

“You think you can help me incinerate these?” he asked. “That was a nice fire the day I bought this place. I can cast _Incendio_ , but with this many,” he nodded at the howlers “and many more will be coming, I may burn the place down.” He didn’t look up; his gaze remained trained on the rest of the envelopes he was thumbing through, like he was mumbling nonsense. Like he assumed he was mumbling nonsense.

He wasn’t as confident about my presence as he’d made himself to look in front of Hermione.

“I’m Harry, by the way,” he said. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

 _Nonononononononono_ , I found my mind’s tongue, not that Harry could hear me at all. _No, you’re absolutely not intruding! Please intrude as often if you can! All the time!! Every meal, every tea, every brunch and elevenses and supper…_ My face was burning again; Harry’s stopped the movement of his hands and he straightened slightly, looking up.

“Hey,” he said, gently. “Hi.”

That was it. It wasn’t even the oven that lit up this time, or the stove top. It was the electric toaster that’d sat unusable in the cabinet for as long as it had been in this cottage…

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

I knocked the cabinet door open with my shoulders. So much for keeping myself invisible then. Harry was quicker though. He immediately saw the offending item and Summoned it with his wand. It sailed towards him, the orange glow inside warming up the dimming kitchen of the evening.

“Slots.” He grinned at the toaster. “Good thinking.”

He put the slots to use as intended, inserting the howlers one by one, while I flew all over the kitchen, my heart too light to be grounded while every other part of me felt about to burst with pride. I did burst a little, actually, the kettle on the stove top wouldn’t stop whistling.

That would go on for the rest of the week: Harry would come home from work, collect the howlers, and I’d burn them all. I thought he was happy. I thought he was as happy as I was.

He wasn’t.

Came Saturday. Hermione appeared by herself this time, her face ashen. She didn’t want to make tea. She didn’t want to drink tea. She wanted to talk.

 _Oh Harry_ , she said, cupping Harry’s face. _This is slander. Not the gay part, but everything else. Kiss-and-tell is bad enough but a_ “come-hole” _? What does that even mean? I…I talked to them; they ambushed me really, those reporters, but…_ She shook her head. _Is it so bad to come out, to tell your story in your own terms?_

Harry kept smiling, but Hermione’s hands got in his way. The smile looked all stiff. All wrong. _Can we talk about this later?_ he asked, taking Hermione’s hands into his own while freeing himself from her grip. He backed out of the kitchen. He didn’t want to talk about this. At all.

That was how The Argument began, and how it ended up taking place out of my earshot. When I next saw Harry, it was in the middle of the night. He didn’t eat, not even those revolting snacks in their over-cheery packages. He didn’t draw circles over his own notes. Instead, he pillowed his head over his arms and cried. I warmed the toaster, still on the kitchen floor, to a faint comforting glow for him.

The first stranger came home two nights later. A Muggle. I couldn’t see him, of course, nor could I see the next one, or the one after that. Sometimes I could feel the ghost of their presence as they passed the kitchen’s threshold on their way out, a hollow shell devoid of magic or love. When I asked Brad about the things he saw, he shook his head. _Come-hole…_ , he whispered, _is not entirely unfair_. I asked what he meant, but he looked down. He looked heartbroken. Most people would, at least, feign love in the bedroom. Harry didn’t.

The Howlers didn’t come into the cottage anymore. Owl treats sat in an empty carton outside the window, where enough envelopes had piled up with the autumn leaves that they obscured the already shortening days from the kitchen. There was no shortage of cartons these days, those that’d used to hold chop suey and those that’d used to hold condoms. The teabags from the Ministry, Harry dropped them in the vase, their long white threads like nooses around the flower that’d long been there and long been dead. The toaster, meanwhile, got trapped between the square of metal brackets on the stove, after Harry had come in for a glass of water and almost tripped on the wire. He’d been tipsy then. Drunk. It’d been the first time I saw his cock, heavy but limp, caught in the half unbuttoned tailored trousers he usually wore, their every crease still perfectly pressed.

You’d thought I would have set fire to another appliance. I didn’t. I cried.

And I would have kept crying, if Draco hadn’t come along.

 

 


	3. The Ways of a Thief

Snow came early, before November ended. A fine dusting of it covered the ground the first night Draco spent in the cottage.

Not that I saw the snow myself. The window view from the kitchen was completely blocked by then. Brad told me about it, and even then, he didn’t make note of it until the morning after. He’d assumed Draco was just another one time visitor, and snoozed. _Easier not to watch_ , he’d said. You see, Brad aspires to be human, and by human, he meant like Alfred and Elaine. He dreams of the love they shared, the smiles, the soft kisses and softer glances. He couldn’t stand the sight of Harry—young, powerful, handsome, _human_ Harry—being a _come-hole_ , which he’d taken to mean having one’s face buried in a pillow, his arse raised for a nameless someone to pound into…

Every morning, he waited for Harry to leave to air out the room. To air out his dream.

So it was I who got to know Draco first.

Draco didn’t pass by the kitchen on his way out; he marched right across the threshold rather than taking dainty steps along it. He wasn’t a ghost; magic trickled in with him, and the only thing hollow about his presence was the halo of his blond hair, gleaming in the near darkness of the kitchen.

The rest of him was solid. Earthy too, incredibly so. I sniffed and smelled soil, the decay in it too…

He cast a soft _Lumos_ and looked around, his gaze a curious mix of curiosity and appraisal, like he had a parchment full of things to complain but was too distracted, too fascinated by them to say a word. He was thin, his collarbones deep shadows framing the loose neck of his worn T-shirt. His features were sharp and chiseled except for his mouth, which looked soft and pink.

He was staring at the scorch mark on the wall.

His head tilted, his eyes narrowed. He approached the mark, and me, and put his hand on the wall, just like Harry had put his hand on the oven screen.

 _Water_ , my mind gasped. _Water magic_.

He pulled away, eyes wide in alarm as I lost control of the tap beside him. The water gushed out, and immediately—so fast that it’d got to be a panicked response—he closed his fist over the mouth of the tap. Water squeezed through the cracks between his fingers, spraying the ceiling in a firework of water jets. Everything was dripping when I got a grip on myself. His fringe was dripping too, slender drops of water gliding down the soft gold. He cast a drying spell, the _Lumos_ at its tip not wavering for a second.

Then, he pressed a finger against his soft, plump mouth. “Shh,” he whispered, an annoyed furrow between his brows. “What kind of a house spirit are you?”

He wasn’t surprised I was there. He was surprised I made myself known.

I almost died of shock.

Ah. I should explain why, shouldn’t I? Why I didn’t expect Draco to know about me, and why house spirits are supposed to be so hush-hush about things? Our ancestors were once spies, you see, created for the purpose of eavesdropping on other wizarding families. We’re made of ancient magic, and our stories, passed along only in the oldest of wizarding families, too.

How did we end up watching over a house? Well, you see, again, something unexpected happened while our ancestors performed their spy work: as they grew, as they turned more powerful and human-like, they also developed this petty, inconvenient thing called a conscience. They became faithful to the people who cooked and cleaned and slept and loved in the house they were supposed to spy on…

Torn between loyalties, my great-great-great-great-great… grandfathers cursed themselves to be unseen and unheard. The wizarding families never believed that though. They believed the spirits, and their descendants, were just biding their time for a full-scale revolt …

This is why, centuries upon centuries later, one descendant was staring at this stranger-intruder in Muggle T-shirt and Muggle jeans, whose hair was framing his face loosely rather than in an armour of Sleekeazy. _No way,_ she was thinking, _no way this person could come from an old wizarding family. Are our secrets out? Is the Ministry coming with a contraption to cart me away, like the Muggles had for Elaine? Will this person do the chivalrous thing, tell Harry about this being in the kitchen, this being who’s supposed to be hostile to wizards?_ Her stomach was twisting with sheer nerves…

It was twisting, and rumbling…

And it rumbled and rumbled and rumbled.

It rumbled some more.

I turned and froze. It had got to be more than my stomach rumbling. The extra noise was coming from…I followed Draco’s eyes to the icebox.

My jaw dropped. _No._

_The ice maker._

Just to confirm my suspicion, the icebox made a loud churning noise, then emitted a series of _plops_ into the small kitchen space.

I wished the rest of the house could swallow the kitchen, swallow me whole and dice me into tiny, not-embarrassing pieces. I closed my eyes, expecting a deluge of snide remarks from this wizard who knew too much. Seconds dripped by. Two more _plopping_ avalanches in the icebox. Still, nothing. I opened one eye and saw Draco then, the ice sculpture of his face molten into the warm pink of his mouth.

“Seriously?” he asked, breaking into an amused smirk.

He strolled across the kitchen, cast a spell to open the icebox when he could have easily reached out and pulled the handle. A soft white light soon draped over the dark floor, over him. I read the back of his T-shirt. It wasn’t completely Muggle, after all. Between the boldfaced “Eltanin Harvests” and the italic “We deliver!” was a broom that zoomed from one end of the text to the other.

A farm wizard. No wonder he smelled so earthy.

I thought he would help me out, put a stop to the rumbling in the icebox like Harry had extinguished the oven fire. But no. He stood there, arms akimbo, examining the shelves in front of him, his mixed appraisal and curiosity back at full force. He took in the foods, the takeaway cartons and Muggle packages. “Huh,” he whispered. “An iced rubbish bin.” He spelled open the closest carton and peered inside. “Gross,” he commented, wrinkling his nose. “What is _that_?” He soon muttered into another one. “Salazar’s Grace,” he mumbled with a shudder after reading the small print on a pack of Muggle sliced cheese.

My heart forgot to flutter; my nerves forgot to fry themselves and my stomach forgot to rumble. _Salazar’s Grace_? That was an old wizard saying, but that hardly mattered anymore. I just wanted to scream _Yes, exactly!_ _Right you are!_ to his every complaint, echo his every horrific expression as he _Accio’ed_ another item.

Finally, somebody understood!

But there was no way I could copy him. His face was far too expressive. I couldn’t be sure if he was truly affronted by what he saw, or he was just taking the piss—

—at the owner of the house, who he’d just had a one night stand with, while he was snooping around.

Draco was acting like he owned the place, more so than Harry had ever had. So strange, I thought. Strange, like the rest of him I’d learned about so far—taken separately, everything made sense, but when put together, they turned unsettling. Like his strong earthy scent with his strong water magic. Like his hard eyes and cheekbones and his soft mouth. Like his casting spells like it’s nobody’s business, knowing about house spirits and saying _Salazar’s Grace_ while wearing worn Muggle jeans and trainers.

He went on to appraise the cabinets next. I felt uncomfortable, all of a sudden. Everything inside belonged to Alfred and Elaine; Harry hadn’t replaced a single thing. He hadn’t even broken one. It wasn’t up to this human here to make judgments about them.

I ran the tap, the hot one, in protest. Steam billowed and hovered between Draco and me.

“Just so you know, Potter’s drunk,” he said. “Also,” he hesitated. “Calming draught.”

_Calming draught?_

What he meant, I gathered, was that I should forget about waking Harry. But something else caught my attention—he knew Harry’s surname. I trimmed the water flow into a trickle. _I’m listening_.

“You really ought to keep quiet,” he drawled, between casting _Wingardium Leviosa_ on a stack of plates and lowering them on a counter. “Don’t you die when you exhaust your magic?”

He was checking out the monogram on the plates, a large “W” flanked a smaller “A” and “E”. Alfred and Elaine Wright. He frowned, craned his neck to check the cups and saucers, their matching monograms. He then opened another cabinet and was soon staring at copper pots, butter churn and egg beater with rusty cogwheels, tin cream cans, and brass strainers.

“Potter really lives here, does he not?” he asked, brushing his fingers against the antiquated utensils. “I haven’t seen something like this since…” He trailed off, shaking his head, his blond hair a curtain to conceal his face. He knelt, took out the butter churn and tried to turn the wheel, showing a care I didn’t expect he had in him. He blew off the dust—I shuddered as his magic flowed against mine—and when the wheel refused to budge, he bit his lip and muttered under his breath, like he was trying to remember something.

Then he cast a pair of spells. They were artisan spells, used only by craft wizards and farm wizards: one for de-rusting, one for lubrication. The magic was nowhere near so certain, as precise than the other spells he’d cast—these spells were new to him—but they did the job. He looked positively arrogant as the wheel clicked and turned. “There,” he announced, the quirk of his lips so proud that it looked more like a sneer.

But he couldn’t offend me. Not for what he had done. Tears welled up in my eyes. If only, I thought, if only it’d been Harry doing this, taking care of the kitchen, taking care of me…

I watched silently as Draco returned the things in place, one by one. His suspicion that these things might belong to wizards long gone somehow made him more cautious, more respectful, often resorting to using his hands. He closed the last cabinet door behind him and was surveying the kitchen again. It looked as if he’d never intruded, as if he’d never been here.

He needed to go soon, his body language said. The clock on the wall said five in the morning.

I wonder if Draco knew it’d said five for more than forty years.

But what he did next, it’d baffle me for months to come. For a long while, he stood still in the middle of the kitchen, his gaze fixed at somewhere afar, somewhere that made it soft and sad. I could feel his magic coursing; I could almost feel the blood running through his veins, the heat, the rush of decisions made and unmade. His eyes sparkled when he moved again, when he stepped in front of the cabinets once more and started to open and close them, one after the other, until he had in his hands what he was looking for. The pair of salt and pepper shaker. He stared at them; then he took the pepper, and left the salt behind.

He got back to the centre of the kitchen one more time, with the shaker in his pocket. My tap was gushing in protest now, but he ignored me. Perhaps he knew I couldn’t hurt him, house spirit code of honour and all that. The vase hidden in the obscure corner of the counter caught his eye, its wilted Grass-of-Parnassus, its suffocating tea bags. He disappeared from the kitchen and came back with blades of grass between his fingers, in the last shade of autumn green, smelling of soil like he did. He tore them apart, sprinkled the bits inside the vase.

Harry’s notebook got his attention next, and he wrote not on the page Harry was on, but a dozen leaves prior to it. He crossed the kitchen, apologised to the Muggle Queen on the calendar, and drew a small ribbon on her hair. He was about to put down the self-fill quill when he smiled—a sad, defeated smile, nothing like the sneer from before—flipped the calendar to June, circled the fifth, inked _My Birthday_ before letting its sheets fall back to November.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when he was done, when he was back at the centre of the kitchen. He was speaking to me. “But I hate to be forgotten,” he looked down, his chest heaving lightly before he looked back up again. “It’s a bad habit.” He was clutching the pepper shaker in the pocket. He knew I knew. “I’ll bring it back if I have a chance. If not, I’ll owl.” His smile had evolved again, into a strange combination of defeat and pride; not the standard I-lost-but-I-fought-a-good-fight combination, but a combination that said I-couldn’t-be-arsed-to-learn- how-much-of-a-loser-I-was-because-I-was-already-the-undisputed-expert-on-that-subject.

I didn’t know why my heart cringed for him, this thief in my home, but it did. I didn’t know why, when he asked if he could get a drink of water before he left, I eased my grip on the tap and let him. I didn’t know why, when he stopped cupping the water with his palm, reached for Harry’s mug on the counter, filled it and drank from it, taking care to match the position of his lips to where Harry had left his mark, I felt the urge to cry again.

I felt the urge to hope again.

 

*~*~*~*

Harry missed every clue Draco had left for him.

With Christmas drawing near, the cottage received another flurry of owls, among them packages of designer shirts and robes. The kitchen was spared with the rotting pile of howlers blocking the window. Brad, meanwhile, looked perennially flustered trying to keep out the cold winds from the bedroom, while large boxes with more embellishments than innards fought him to squeeze their way in.

Harry hung the clothes up, he told me, without even looking at them.

The last time Harry had got new clothes, it’d been April, and what’d come after was weeks of Harry pacing the kitchen in these clothes early mornings, his rubbish breakfast forgotten on the table, as he’d practised speeches that inevitably started with _We’re here to celebrate.._. Celebrate peace. The end of a war. The life of a name.

There had been so many names.

He’d looked anything but celebratory. Sometimes, he’d broken down and couldn’t continue. Sometimes, he looked drained of expression, of _life_ , as he recited the list of departments and sponsors he should thank to make the event possible. I’d learned to hate it all: the sponsors, the speeches, the beautiful robes that had sent my heart aflutter when I’d first seen Harry in them.

I dreaded seeing Harry like that again. Especially since he’d stopped bringing home random people. Draco had shown up every week instead, wearing his almost-Muggle clothes and sneaking into the kitchen to pilfer, leaving more and more obvious trails of his more and more outrageous antics for Harry to uncover.

Things that came in pairs were especially vulnerable to his sticky fingers: the mortar and pestle soon followed the fate of the salt and pepper shakers. Forks were left behind without the knives, and the two bread slots on the toaster had fused into one.

If only I could tell Draco to save the trouble, that Harry only ate with the utensils and condiment packets he got from takeaways.

Yes, I’d found myself, strangely, rooting for him, rooting for him to earn Harry’s love. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t personal, my fondness for Draco. I would root for anyone who wanted Harry that way.

Minister Tuft had grown Kneazle ears, and the ribbons on the Queen’s head had turned into a doxy infestation. Comments were added to Harry’s newspaper notes, some snide, others serious, and most of them incomprehensible—one time I’d assumed he was drawing between Harry’s handwriting, until I realised that the flowing script was a chain of _I’m sorry_ ’s, written in mirror image.

Why hadn’t he told Harry instead, rather than letting the words, barely decipherable as they’d been, snake between the social consequences of Voldemort’s reign? What was he so sorry for?

The scorch mark on the wall had shrunk by inches from the original boundary. Draco’s water magic had been cool and numbing, like menthol. He’d drawled on and on about how ridiculous and unsightly and flat-out _insulting_ it was for a magical home to be infested with Muggle burn marks, but I’d ignored him.

His magic was too sweet for his jabs to have any weight.

His misdeeds didn’t end there. One night, he’d declared himself hungry, the food in the icebox inedible, then brandished a dozen eggs—each perfect, round and large and almost peachy—from the pocket of his anorak. He’d blown off the protective spells, retrieved a pan from the cabinet and started frying the eggs on the stove.

He was a terrible cook.

There were eggshells in the egg white, and egg white along the edge of the pan. He couldn’t find cooking oil, so he opened the cartons in the icebox, looked for one with the most grease in it, wiped the pan with the contents and dumped the contents back into the carton. The flames were on too high and the eggs somersaulted with his flipping spell, sending half-cooked yolk everywhere.

The product was something that looked rather like a crumpled ball of parchment. Draco had chewed on it with a proud, proud sneer that would make a Cheshire Cat doubt the quality of her cream. But then, several bites later, he’d declared himself not hungry anymore, and distributed the rest of the eggs into the cartons in the icebox. He’d cleaned up the kitchen afterwards, leaving me with a skinful of goosebumps— _sparkling_ goosebumps—when he’d taken off at the imaginary five am.

I would’ve more than rooted for Draco, I would’ve fallen in love with him, like I’d fallen in love with Harry, if I had the answers to all the questions in my head: how could Harry not have noticed? So many times I’d thought he had spotted something; as he’d staggered in the kitchen the morning after, looking far more out of it than usual, he’d paused at the places where Draco had left a mark. Then he’d staggered on. Then he’d stopped putting his extra plastic forks and knives in the cabinets. Then he’d thrown out the takeaway cartons and bought more prepackaged foods. Then he’d started a new notebook after Draco had written his _I’m sorry_ ’s in them. Then he’d stopped dusting the calendar with cleaning spells and propped the Christmas card from Luna against the vase, the blades of grass in them now yellow with age.

I asked Brad what had gone on upstairs between Harry and Draco. He flushed, furiously. _I…I couldn’t snooze anymore,_ he replied. They were loud in bed. He was baffled, too, when I told him about the things Draco had done in the kitchen. Harry always asked Draco to stay the night, he said. Draco would ask to freshen up in the loo, crawl back to bed afterwards and demand another kiss from Harry. _A deep one_ , he’d ask. Harry would soon fall asleep, and Draco would leave.

 _Has Harry been drunk_? I asked. Draco let it slip, once, that look of pride-defeat on his face again, that Harry would never have slept with him if he hadn’t been intoxicated. But I’d wondered, because Harry’s sleep had always been fitful, especially with alcohol in his system, and he’d never once come downstairs for a midnight snack during Draco’s kitchen show.

Brad shook his head. _Only the first time._

 _Calming draught_? I pressed on.

Brad shook his head, again.

 _Is Draco a good person_?

Brad pulled me into his arms. He rocked the two of us together, his hair limp against my shoulder. Lately, his hugs had lost strength; his skin gave in too much to my weight, and his breaths were heavier, colder. Wind, the flighty element, was taking over his Earth. I circled my arms around him, called in my fire magic to keep us warm.

The answers would come, but not until after Christmas, not until Harry had given another round of celebration and thank you speeches.

And he would be angry. Really angry.  

 

*~*~*~*

Harry had spent that Christmas Eve with Ron and Hermione. The next evening, he was back in the cottage, and so was Draco. By the morning of Boxing Day, the lid of a pot had gone missing. A flower, magically woven from white poinsettias, had replaced the dried Grass-of-Parnassus, and the scorch mark on the wall, while keeping its size, had gone a full shade lighter. Inside the icebox, a plate of crumpled egg parchment balls sat majestically, garnished with burnt tomatoes and ashes of mushrooms, holding court to the bowing cartons pushed to its side.

Harry was clutching his forehead, his eyes squinting, when he staggered into the kitchen. His abs were on display with his ridden-up T-shirt, his joggers riding low on his hips. _The perfect morning-after look_ , I thought to myself dreamily, expecting him to ignore the blatant signs Draco had left behind in the kitchen again, grab his breakfast from the icebox, and work a bit on his newspaper notes.

But he dashed his last few steps to the kitchen sink, collapsed against the ledge and wretched into it. His whole body heaved; his eyes were dull and red-rimmed when he was done.

I didn’t know what to do. I twisted the tap on, let it run, and warmed the water. I ignited a fire in the oven, tuned the glow to a soothing yellow, and set off to get the toaster to do the same—

The toaster, now with a single slot rather than two.

Harry stared at it, at the coils of wires inside that Draco had re-routed into a zig-zag pattern. They weren’t glowing as they should. They blinked, instead, like stars. I injected more of my fire magic. The blinks became faster, dazzling bright. They—the toaster—then fizzled, in a billowing cloud of smoke.

I let out a scream and hopped back. I stood there, hands behind my back and fidgeting, wondering if he could feel the heat—the guilt—radiating out of me.

Harry coughed into his arm, once, and staggered towards the blackened piece of metal. A deep furrow had formed between his brows. He poked the dead toaster with his wand, once, turned it over and poked it again. It shivered; the slit coughed up another puff of smoke—vapoury, watery smoke—and condensates budded all over the metal shell, like it was sweating, like it was guilty like me. The sight of water made Harry pause. Then it made him angry. Fuming angry. The magic in him ignited; I saw it in his eyes as he swung his arm, tore the toaster away from the floor with wandless magic. The loose metal pieces clattered as it trembled its way to the rubbish bin and fell inside.

I gasped. _No._

The vase was next. He snapped closed Luna’s card, exposing the vase, and dumped the vase’s contents—the woven poinsettia flower, the old teabags—into the rubbish bin.

I began to cry. The last teabag was still clinging to the vase. Harry stopped shaking the vase for a beat, still bent at his waist as he listened to the dripping—my eyes’ dripping—from the pipes behind the walls. His jaw clenched, and he made an extra vigorous shake. The teabag fell, finally. A clean, horrible _thud_.

He confronted the scorch mark next. A test spell blasted out from his wand and smoke billowed again, fire magic clashing with water magic. Harry gave a frustrated grunt and cast another spell that I didn’t recognise, that was so strong that it tore a hole in the wood.

I screamed. It’d been almost a year, but I’d never seen Harry like this before. I’d seen him sad, often; seen him resigned and withdrawn, even more often so, but never angry. I couldn’t stomach the fear anymore; not with the bubble of frustration I’d held in for so long. I let it all out, a shout of metal and raining nails, as the pipe burst. Jets of water shot through the crack, through the hole, and across the kitchen.

Harry tore off his wet glasses, threw them aside, and pushed his wet hair back. He looked wild now, his face still pale, his green eyes wide but unfocused. His clothes had turned translucent with the water and they stuck on his skin; I could see his every muscle bulging, his sinews protruding as he marched towards the calendar, as he ripped it off like whatever sticking spell that had held it up for the past four decades was no more than Muggle sellotape. He tore off the sheet with the photo of the Queen and the Minister, folded it, and wrung it into a twist. He threw the rest of the calendar across the room.

I burst another pipe. This time, under the sink. Water flooded into the kitchen.

“You stop that.” He pointed at the oven, at the fire still burning inside, at me. “You stop that, right now. You’re a colluder in this.”

I shook my head violently. The cabinet doors swung and drummed against their frames.

“I told him—I told Draco Malfoy—very clearly last night, that I was off duty. I wasn’t on bezoar. He still fed me his potion just to get out of staying the night with me. What I threw up just now was the Draught of the Living Dead. A trace amount, but he could’ve killed me.”

I drummed the cabinet doors even harder. I couldn’t help myself anymore. I’d been so disappointed, so heartbroken for so long; I’d loved and lost and lost and lost again—

A piece of wood chipped from the corner of a cabinet door. The crack was loud, crisp, like lightning. I ignored the sharp pain and kept going…

The door slammed not on the frame next time. The landing was soft. Warm, too. I looked down and saw Harry on his knees in front of the cracked door, his hand stuck between the door and the frame. He didn’t flinch at the pain. He didn’t flinch at the red budding on the pad of his finger, against the fraying edge of the crack.

“Don’t do this, please.”

Blood. I felt faint. I stopped.

He dropped his hand and sat on his knees. The loose cloth of his joggers swayed in the film of water on the tiles. His shoulders fell. His anger was dissipating, too.

I caught my breath as he sucked off the blood from his fingertip. He picked up the floating wood chip in the water, blew it dry with a muttered spell, and fit it against the broken edge on the door, casting a sticking charm only after he’d made sure the position was right. _I’m no good at healing spells_ , he said, trying to smooth out the still visible edge between the attached wood. _A bit of scarring… I hope it’s all right?_

I kept nodding, not that he could see me. I was sobbing again.

I was hoping again.

_I’m sorry._

I turned away, turned the oven flame on to just stronger than a pilot, just strong enough to light the space between him and me. He couldn’t possibly know how shocked, how happy I felt. House spirits, as our stories went, should never be worthy of apologies.

I looked at the mess in the kitchen. The stories had a point, I reckoned. Apologies were definitely not necessary for a house spirit like myself.

“I’m used to people not wanting to say no to me,” Harry started talking at the light between us. “Draco….” He shook his head. “I never thought he’d have a problem with that.” He wiped his wet face with his wetter arm, and he smiled. How many sad smiles did he and Draco know? They could write an encyclopaedia on that. “Instead, he drugged me, he did this—“ he gestured in the direction of the bin, “—I don’t even know what this is.” A hint of exasperation appeared on his lips, and I realised, he liked Draco. He really liked Draco.

He lowered his head, wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged himself tight. He looked small like this. I thought of Brad, of what he would have done for me, if he’d seen me like Harry was, now. A lone flame appeared in the oven with my thoughts, and it flickered towards him, the tip curled, like a small brush. His smile broadened, brightened, and it looked so innocent, so beautiful. He bobbed his head lightly on his curled arms, as his attention returned to the rubbish bin, the empty vase and the soaked calendar, floating by the door without its principal actresses. “Maybe…,” he whispered, after a long stretch of silence, after he’d frowned and chewed his lips and thought and thought…

I didn’t know what that _maybe_ meant. But the idea of it seemed to give him strength, give him hope. He straightened and looked up and around, and the smile I’d given him returned to his mouth. “Better get this place back in order.”

He did that, steam billowing in his wake. He welded the pipes, patched the wall, and siphoned water out through the window, Banishing the mountain of mouldy howlers outside. I’d never felt his magic so intimately and for so long. I felt hot all over, not only because of his magic crackling against my skin, but because he hadn’t bothered to go upstairs or Summon dry clothes. He’d just taken off his wet shirt and joggers and thrown them into the sink. “You’re good with fire today,” he said to me, grinning at the flames dancing on every ignitable place in the kitchen. “Good for drying things out.” He added then, once more, his grin subdued, “I’m really sorry about the mess.”

He tipped the rubbish bin, pulled out the poinsettia flower and the Queen and Minister in a twist. “I can’t fix this,” he said about the toaster, but then he transformed it into a box and put the flower and the photo inside. The rest of the calendar was flipped to June on the floor. He looked at it, at the circle on the fifth that said _My Birthday_ , whispered _git_ and tore out that tiny soggy square, and stored it in the box too. The notebook got in the way of the box as he set the latter on the table. He picked it up and mindlessly flipped through the pages, and stopped where Draco had written his chain of _I’m sorry_ ’s.

Harry ran a finger along the words. Moments later, he put the notebook down, gently, and looked for breakfast in the icebox. He found a fork in the half-empty cutlery drawer, set the plate of disfigured eggs, tomatoes, and mushrooms on the table, and finished them all.

 

*~*~*~*  

Harry lay the things out again to take a photo.

The camera in his hands was Alfred’s, black and silver but mostly scratched from use. I’d cried at the sight of it, of course. The tiny window was still there, the one Alfred had squinted through as he’d clicked and wound the film with his thumb, as Elaine had blushed and told him to stop. She hadn’t put on a proper dress and makeup, you see. Alfred had shaken his head at the protests and smiled…like Harry was shaking his head and smiling as he studied the doxy manifestation on the Queen’s head, as he dissected the origami flower made of poinsettia leaves.

The lens turned with his wrist, and he pressed the button. I squinted, ready for the bright flash.

It didn’t go. Harry pressed again. Nothing. He shook the camera; the click-clacks of a loosened screw answered him. He placed his hand on the cover, ready to push—

 _No!_ I dropped the curtain, the one that’d been scrolled for decades. Dust flew everywhere and I coughed. Harry coughed too.

“Right,” he whispered. “Film.” He looked flustered, ran his hand through his perfectly styled hair. A piece of it wouldn’t come down again, and I giggled at the cowlick, wriggling the curtain. I didn’t have the strength to move it back up, it being neither fire nor water. Harry grinned and hopped on the counter.

Soon, the bright winter sun was bathing the kitchen once more, its rays casting a spotlight upon Harry, who’d picked up a quill and torn off a piece of parchment from the notebook. It was marked with the failed beginnings of a speech; he scratched it off. _I found the things in the kitchen_ , he wrote below the smudge, hesitating at times, chewing the feather between words. _I want to send you a photo for proof but the camera isn’t cooperating. They mean something, don’t they? I wish you’ve told me, in person. I don’t like guessing, I’m rubbish at it. No, I’m not angry (not anymore). I just want to understand. Please come by._

As soon as the owl zoomed past the window, I ran to tell Brad about what Harry had just done.

 _Harry really, really likes Draco_ , I announced. And I would announce it, between the pillars, along the pipes Harry had mended, again, and again, and again.

 

*~*~*~*  

_Please come by._

Draco hadn’t responded to the owl, so Harry had written again, and again, and again.

_I know it means something that you spent Christmas Day with me._

_Love’s in the air_! Meanwhile, between the pillars, along the pipes Harry had mended, I’d kept with my battle cries, mostly to annoy Brad. Brad, who‘d refused to acknowledge the potential of Harry and Draco just because Alfred and Elaine had never fought. Granted, people in love usually wouldn’t go about poisoning each other, but…

Details.

Brad had taken to sulking in the attic. He’d looked almost translucent in the winter sun, as he’d contemplated the happenings of Christmas Day, over and over. I could almost see through his skin, hear the fearful beats of his heart.

He didn’t like that, didn’t like his doubts exposed in the daylight. He’d shrunk further into the corner, into the shadows.

 _Harry’s so quick to forgive_ , I’d cooed, happily. _Too quick_ , he’d countered, solemnly. The severity of his crimes aside, Draco had riled Harry enough that Harry had almost destroyed the cottage, destroyed Brad and me.

 _It’s love_ , I’d argued. _Harry wouldn’t love anyone unworthy of love._

 _It’s dangerous_ , Brad had argued back. _Love..._ He’d closed his eyes. It’d pained him to say it. _Love makes humans stupid._

He wasn’t wrong, I knew deep down. Volatile humans made dangerous housemates, and while we’d never been taught self-preservation, we were born to be spies. We were born to know self-preservation.

 _You made me promise to not go looking for you._ Meanwhile, heedless of our debate, of our hopes and our fears, Harry forged on with his quill at the kitchen table _. Don’t make me break my promise._

 _Is Draco a good person_? Brad had asked again, the question that had become his obsession. I’d gone on another round of battle cry and zipping around, because I hadn’t had the answer.

I didn’t have the answer.

On the table, too, lay an Eltanin Harvest Order form, wrinkled from the blowing snow outside. Harry had read through the delivery options on his way home, through glasses made heavier, more visible with the molten water dripping from the lens. His quill hovered above the column of squares— _Vegetables only? Fruits only? With or without dairy? Seasonal picks?_ —but never made a mark in any of them. Instead, the nib glided down, and down, and down, to the small print, where it said “special instructions”.

 _I want the best you can offer_ , he wrote.

 

 


	4. Rotten?

Eltanin Harvests made its first delivery on the fifteenth day of the New Year, after I’d made my anticipation known by belching out everything in the icebox that hadn’t seen a farm, which was everything. It was the most fun I’d had as a kitchen spirit. Even Brad had smiled a little, as I’d recounted my catapulting every Muggle yoghurt cup straight into the rubbish bin, which Harry, resigned, had placed in the middle of the kitchen floor for my shots.

But on the evening of January the fifteen, the question— _Is Draco a good person?_ —became officially poignant, officially inescapable.

Harry stared at the crate in the middle of the kitchen, his mouth open. Staring right back at him were dead chickens on a bed of rotten eggs, potatoes with moulds as thick as its horns, strawberries that looked more like chopped up grindylows, and apples with see-through holes. The crate had opened to the sight of perfect fruits and vegetables, but the beauty was only skin deep, a layer just enough to hide the decay inside. The magic separating the good and the rotten was distinctively Draco’s. Water magic poured like a powerful waterfall that allowed no knowledge of the dark rocks hidden behind them.

 _Depulso!_ Harry finally cast. In his surprise, he’d pulled out a shirttail while he’d pulled out his wand.

But no spells, no magic could Banish the stink. It lingered as Harry stood, his eyes fixed at the spot where the crate had landed no more than ten minutes ago. Seconds ticked by, the furrow between his brows deepened.

He retreated from the kitchen. Soon, an owl soared by the kitchen window, a haphazardly folded note tied to its leg.

Neither Brad nor I caught sight of any returning owls that evening. The next day, another crate with the same putrid contents squeezed through the window and landed with a thud. Harry Banished it without a word. Yet another crate arrived the day after. This went on for a week. Harry’s owl always flew by the window afterwards. A pile of Eltanin Harvest order forms appeared on the kitchen table, and it thinned by one form every day. Harry simply sent Draco another order as soon as he’d Banished the one before.

_I want the very best you can offer._

Then, on a cold, sunny Sunday, the crate opened and the camouflage of perfect produce was gone. On the bed of rotten fruits was the carcass of a spotted snake. Dark green and black, coiled up in an eight-shaped knot. The eyes were gone, carved out like the two hollows on a skull.

I screamed.

Harry’s _Aguamenti_ showered upon the kitchen almost immediately, like he’d expected this to happen—expected Draco to send him things terrifying enough to set off my kitchen fires. Another spell, and the curtain fell to cover the crate. I started to cry, and he started to swear. He swore like I had never heard him swore before, like I had never heard anyone swear before. _He’s hiding from me and hiding from himself_ , I heard between his gritted teeth.

I didn’t understand what he meant.

I didn’t know what I could do either, other than washing Harry’s hands extra well after he cleaned up, and calming my flames as much I could. Harry put on an ice-filled pot to ease off my heat, the cold-hearted water melting and twisting to my will gave me a dim satisfaction that lasted all of five minutes. The fruits were Banished but not the snake; that, Harry wrapped in the curtain and brought outside the kitchen. I would have imagined the stink couldn’t be so bad without the carcasses, but I was wrong. The kitchen reeked, even after Harry opened the window all the way while a storm raged outside.

I wish Brad had been the kitchen spirit. He would know how to air out the stink.

He would know how to air out my hopes.

No more crates arrived after that, and I thought it was all over between Harry and Draco. Hermione mentioned the snake once to Harry. _Nothing suspicious_ , she said. _Every detection spell came back clean._ She opened her mouth again, a moment later. _Look,_ she said, _about Draco_ … She couldn’t finish. Harry held up a hand to ask her to please stop talking and this time, she did. The icebox filled up with rubbish foods again, slowly but surely, and…

I knew I wasn’t the only person who thought it was all over, between Harry and Draco.

On the first Friday night of February, I saw Harry _fuck_ for the first time. Or was it seeing, really, if all I could see were the movements blurred by the tears in my eyes? There was Harry, bent over the table, his head pillowed against his forearms, his designer clothes all in place but for his trousers pulled down to his thighs, as the stranger pounded into him. He made no noise. He moved only to the force from the man thrusting behind him. Halfway through, he craned his neck, took off his glasses and set them aside. His eyes were dull with alcohol, and his face was blank.

Brad was right. Snoozing was far more tolerable than watching this. The man came with a louder than necessary grunt, and yanked on Harry’s cock—long and heavy, but barely hard. The man teased it, teased Harry for being a whore, a _come-hole_.

Harry let him.

It was difficult, and definitely wrong for me to light a flame in the oven. It was difficult because water magic was flooding my eyes; it was wrong, because not just a human, but a Muggle was present. But Harry could see it, I knew. Harry could understand what I was trying to say, I hoped.

He understood. _Shut up_ , he muttered, his words slurred. _Shut up_.

The man laughed and slapped Harry’s arse. Harry didn’t shut up, but I did. I withdrew from my kitchen duties and hid and wept in Brad’s arms until Valentine’s day, when someone else proved himself to be just as incapable of shutting up and fading away as I was, when a crate, filled with rotten apples this time, crashed onto the kitchen floor.

A new, unrequested delivery from Eltanin Harvests.

The crate itself must have been infused with magic. It knew how to make a presence. Too bad its intended audience was still at work.

The floor was a firework of rotten apple chunks on splintered wood when Harry returned home to the cottage, and the drain was gurgling as my stomach flipped and heaved. Harry stared at the mess for a long moment, and I thought he would Banish it all like before.

But he didn’t. Instead, he began pacing around the kitchen, the tread of his boots marking a circular path amidst the shambles. He thought, and thought, and thought. His frown got so deep that his eyes got lost under the shadow of his brows.

The night grew old. He stopped pacing, finally, and started turning the apples, one by one, with the tip of his boots. The decay was complete, the filth thorough. Some apples seemed to melt into a pool of sewage as soon as they were touched; others clung on the dragon hide like the most stubborn mix of dog poo and chewing gum. Harry tested some spells on them; they disintegrated, shrunk, floated as they were supposed to. I felt no magic in them.

I felt no goodness in them, either, in the human who’d sent them. My stomach churned again, and the drain spewed water back into the sink.

Harry disappeared from the kitchen, and when he returned, I thought for one second that Draco had shown up again. _He’d dug them out from his rucksack_ , Brad would tell me later about the Muggle T-shirt and jeans. _His school robe was in there too_. He rolled up his sleeves, located the old bags from his takeaways from under the sink, and went on his knees on the floor. He picked up the rotten fruits, examined each carefully, before spelling a stasis spell on a few and putting them into the bag. The rest he Banished.

An owl soared by the window again. _I want the worst you can give_ , said the order form.

And that wish was granted, in flying colours. Fifteen more crates came over the next fortnight, one a day, each carrying nothing but rotten apples.

Harry sorted and preserved a few apples from each crate as he’d done before, in his Muggle T-shirt and jeans. I felt puzzled, and the near suffocation from not breathing didn’t help. I felt ill, light-headed like the wind I never was, stuffy in my heart like the Earth I never would be, so much so that when Harry was done and removed his clothes to wash them in the sink, none of my kitchen flames lit up. I wanted to ask for this to be over. I wanted to seal the windows so it would be over. Brad was right. This was twisted, and sick, and rotten.

The drain wouldn’t hold much more of the constant gurgling. It was starting to choke.

 _Sorry to have to put you through this_ , Harry said after the seventh delivery, while putting the bag of preserved rotten apples in the icebox. He threw out a takeaway carton for space, while I wanted to hold on to it with my dear life. I wanted to hold on to everything that wasn’t the apples. _I promise, it’ll be over soon. I’ll Bind him and get him here if I need to_.

And that was exactly what he’d end up doing, but not before he came home with bagfuls of Muggle groceries. I teared up again at the sight of flour huddled with eggs and butter and lemon and sugar and cream on the counter, the pie tin and brush and wooden spoon soaking in suds in the sink.

 _You’ll run out of tears soon,_ Brad whispered, petting me on the arm as I watched Harry sponge the knives that hadn’t been touched for years. Brad hadn’t once gloated about being right, about Harry and Draco; he had always been a better person than I was. I nodded. I hadn’t told him what Harry had said to me before the grocery run. That I should be prepared for Draco’s return but I need not worry; that I should expect a fight but know that Harry and Draco won’t kill each other.

Even if sometimes, they might look like they would.

 

*~*~*~*

“I’m not your grocer boy.” I heard Draco before I’d seen him, his protest streaming in even before he’d passed the threshold completely. His magic was loud and screaming, like crashing waves. He was furious.

I re-focused, folded and re-folded the extra dough on the counter, unleashing the bag hovering on the bowl for a few water drops when the crumbs threatened to dry out. I’d been doing this all day, too nervous to even talk with Brad. Harry had left out this extra ball of dough, while the dough for the pie had been sitting in the oven and kept fresh with a stasis charm. _I trust you to keep this safe before the filling’s ready_ , Harry had said this morning, sliding the pie tin with the flattened and trimmed dough onto the rack. _You think you can do that?_ I wondered how well he’d understood what set me off, that the impending doom of Draco’s visit was only one of them. I’d almost set the kitchen on fire already while his hands had massaged the flour and butter and water, his muscles flexing as he’d pushed the rolling pin forward…

Harry dragged Draco into the kitchen and threw him on to a chair. “Sit down.”

Draco struggled against the invisible binds around him, his eyes shooting the sharpest glare, his lips thinned to a line. His loose fringe had been tied back, showing off a widow’s peak that put a vampire’s to shame. His T-shirt was plain green this time, filthy, with patches of brown everywhere and smelling of rotten apples. His fingernails were caked with grime. “You’ve got no right to imprison me. It’s against the law.”

“I know,” Harry fired a spell and bound Draco to the chair. Another spell, and the chair was glued to the floor. He was still in his Auror robe, the collar button open as usual like every night he’d returned home from work. The tailoring was still impeccable, and the white of the shirt showing was still crisp to the point of stark. “I don’t care.”

Draco writhed against the restraints, which, I noticed, showed no signs of cutting into his flesh. His wrists didn’t show any streaks of red. They were pale, in fact, like the rest of him, like someone who’d never seen the sun, never mind someone who’d worked under the sun. In fact, his hands, save for the filth at the moment, looked so unblemished and soft that he looked like someone who had never worked at all, who didn’t even know what work was. But he had this ugly tattoo like he’d toiled for some gangsters, and then, his shirt rode up and there was a plane of hard, rippling muscles…

I scrambled to clamp the water bag before the extra dough became a soggy lump.

“You’ll either stop moving, or I’ll tighten the bind,” Harry said, while Draco gave another vicious thrust of his hips.

“Stop. Now.” Harry’s voice was low, as he hovered above the chair, his palms planted on the armrests. His waist was bent such that their faces were merely inches apart. Draco’s eyes widened; his breath hitched, and so did mine. Harry’s lips were so full, so sexily full, that they could easily touch Draco’s when he spoke. “Do I get a word from you that you’ll stay still?”

“What will you do to me?” Draco’s attempt to spit his words failed; his tone was unsteady, breathy. Musical, like a bubbling brook. His lips were still thinned to a line, but his face more than made up for the missing pink.

Harry pulled away and stood. “I hope you had supper.” He lifted a hand and reached behind Draco, yanked on the tie and let the hair fall and frame Draco’s face, even sharper and gaunter than it had been two months ago. A shudder trickled through Draco, visibly, as Harry slipped a finger along the blond strands, as their eyes followed the touch.

“I’ll make dessert,” Harry said, a slight smirk on his lips. “We’ll eat it.”

 

*~*~*~*

“You asked for them!” Draco exclaimed, writhing again when Harry retrieved the bags of preserved rotten apples from the icebox. “The worst, you said!”

“I didn’t ask the first time,” Harry said, pulling out a dagger from his boot and beheaded the knots of the bags with a clean slice. Draco swallowed, and blushed harder. “I didn’t ask for that first crate you sent me on Valentine’s day.” The putrid smell filled the kitchen, horrible but familiar. I dropped the dough, hid in the oven and inhaled the imaginary buttery scent of a cooked pie crust in quick, deep breaths.

I looked out of the screen, expecting Draco to gag. He didn’t.

Of course he didn’t. He’d packed the crates and sent them. Where did he get all the rotten apples from? Were there pest issues in his farm? Why was he smelling like rot himself?

Harry poured the apples into an old stock pot he’d pulled out from the cabinet. He found a mixer bowl, picked up the set of knives he’d washed the day before. He sharpened the blades against each other, brutally efficient like the best among Muggle chefs. The metal chimed.

Draco blinked as the knife gleamed. His eyes had widened so much that all trace of their sharpness was gone. His lips trembled; I thought he had something important to say. But when he managed to speak, it was “Potter, shouldn’t you change out of your clothes?”

“No.” Harry didn’t look at Draco at all. He Summoned the rubbish bin, enlarged it and stood it by his side. “Now shut up and watch.” He picked up the first apple and blew off the stasis spell; half of the thing—brown and black and grey and fuzzy at some places—turned into mush immediately, its dark juices running down to soak the cuff of Harry’s sleeves Harry didn’t care; he frowned at whatever was left, turned it with one hand with astonishing care and gentleness, while reaching for the smallest knife of the set with his other. He rested the knife then on the fruit, and with two sharp cuts…

A tiny chunk of apple fell into the mixer bowl. A tiny chunk of perfectly red skin and brilliant white flesh. Harry turned the fruit again, examining it once more before binning it.

He picked up the second apple, and did the same thing. This time, two minuscule spheres of apple fell into the mixer bowl, each no more than the size of a pea. Harry Summoned the lemon wedge wandlessly and spelled it to hover above the bowl. The wedge gave a little shudder, and a sprinkle of juice coated the apple pieces below.

Harry picked up the third apple, then the fourth, the fifth….

“Make me,” Draco whispered, long after Harry’s command for him to shut up and watch had been issued. His gaze had been fixed on Harry since, Harry’s hands and knife that had been salvaging what little good he could find in the rotten apples, the growing heap of red and white in the mixer bowl, Harry’s sleeves that had since been soaked all the way up to his elbows. He’d stopped fidgeting a long time ago, and the softening of his eyes had spread to the rest of his face. His lips were pink and wet again, and his whisper escaped like a little puff of steam between them.

Maybe he and Harry wouldn’t get close to killing each other, after all. I checked the oven pilot, measured the height of blue and gold and trimmed the unnecessary sparks, making sure it was ready for its first cooking project for decades. My breaths evened, just a smidge, for the first time since sunrise, even though I still hadn’t a clue what was going on.

Time trickled by. The kitchen was quiet, save for the occasional drip of rotten juice _,_ the low hum of the oven, and the light _squish_ as the knives bit into the fruits. Harry had fast, incredibly precise hands, but as he saved more apples from their rot, he became prone to nicking himself. He sucked on each wound for a moment before forging on, sometimes leaving a pink imprint of blood on the next apple he handled. Every time that happened, Draco cringed, and I couldn’t be sure if he was reacting to Harry’s pain, or the blood Harry’s pain had left behind.

I’d like to think it’s the former. But then, I remembered the Draught of the Living Dead. I cringed too, the sight of blood draining my own.

When the last apple evolved into a slice of perfection, Harry washed his hands and Banished the rubbish bin. The floor was a mess though, and so was he, his robe and even his shirt sullied with splatters of rot. I half expected he would take them off at the sink, but he only cast a haphazard drying spell on himself. He transferred the perfect apple pieces into a pot, put the pot on the stovetop, and twisted the knob.

I almost burned off his eyebrows with the first flame that hopped on the metal bracket. It was overexcited, like me. I blushed. The bracket glowed, a fiery red.

Harry’s stoney face melted into a smile. _Easy_ , he mouthed, so that Draco couldn’t hear. _Counting on you here_. He poured in sugar, and while he mixed it with the apples, I felt his fire magic twirling, dancing with mine. It was sweet and calming, if not for the water magic protesting in the background, surfing and crashing like heartbeats, like something that would swell and swallow up everything once the timing was right.

The physical Draco remained silent and soft—docile, almost—on the chair. His torso draped upon it, his stomach caved in and his legs languidly stretched ahead. Sometimes, he stared at his own hands, his lips trembling to some words that even I couldn’t hear. The smell of apples was strengthening by the minute, overpowering the stink, the lemony scent of detergent as Harry cleaned the utensils and the floor. It almost seemed to be pushing against Draco, making him smaller and smaller in his seat…

More than two hours after Draco had been dragged into the kitchen, the apple pie was ready.

 

*~*~*~*

Harry hadn’t thought of how to get Draco to eat with his hands tied.

The apple pie sat between them, steaming lightly. Harry had stabbed a hole in the middle and taken a bite. The filling was missing hearty chunks of apple, but it was golden and fragrant. Draco’s stomach rumbled.

“Draco,” Harry spoke. “Could you promise to not run if I untie you?”

Draco stared at the pie and shook his head.

“Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” Harry asked. He looked every bit as messy as Draco did. His hair was sticking up in funny places, and his eyes were tinted by the rainbowy oil slick on his glasses.

Silence. Draco kept staring. Harry waited, took another taste of the pie.

“I changed my mind,” Draco whispered, finally, his gaze still fixed. His mouth barely moved. “Untie me, and I’ll stay, if I also have your word that you won’t use magic for the next five minutes. After the five minutes, we eat pie.”

I dropped the palmful of buttery crumbs I was sniffing. How dare Draco, still demanding things, still thinking he deserved to call the shots after he’d done so much wrong…

Harry put down his fork, and blotted his mouth lightly with a paper napkin. He folded the napkin into a neat square and placed it in front of him. The napkin was an extra from his takeaways, the rest of which were stacked in a haphazard pile on the table.

“Make that ten minutes,” Draco said, narrowing his eyes at the napkin. “No magic, no matter what I do.”

I huffed, annoyed. The dropped crumbs flew all over me.

Harry leaned forward, clasped his hands above the napkin and contemplated. “Deal,” he said afterwards, “on one condition. You don’t kill me in the kitchen.”

Draco didn’t nod. He didn’t promise anything. “The spirit,” he supplied.

I stared at the two faces across the table. Both looked deathly serious. _No…nononononono way. This is not happening under my watch._ I blasted the tap, ignited a fire on every burner. Both humans ignored me.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, pushing the pie aside and stood up. “I promised her. The spirit. No murders in the kitchen.” He retrieved a wand from his pocket—hawthorne, not his own—and placed it side by side with Draco’s unused fork, turning it so the handle pointed at Draco.

“On the count of three,” Harry said, approaching Draco instead of backing away. He waved his own wand at the clock. _Reparo._ A second hand emerged from its hiding behind the minute hand and stepped forward. A hint of smile tugged on Harry’s lips.

I cowered on the window sill, dropped the curtain and wrapped myself with it, covered my ears and sobbed. None of these things would save me, I knew. I would see and hear everything. _Please,_ I chanted, _Let me quit. I don’t want to be a kitchen spirit anymore…_

Draco’s wand clattered on the floor. He’d grabbed the fork on its side and raised it, then slammed it down against Harry’s chest in full force.

Harry caught his wrist. Draco twisted his arm and freed himself. The chair crashed behind them. Draco lunged forward, circled one arm around Harry’s neck, extended his other one with the fork—

Harry bent and threw Draco down against the tiles. Draco caught the hem of his robe and Harry rolled on the floor too. Then, a clang; Harry had seized the fork from Draco and hauled it across the kitchen, where it’d landed by the threshold. Draco bit Harry at the elbow, right below the filthy sleeve and Harry shoved his leg between Draco’s and flipped them over, so that Draco was underneath him and lost his grip, his bite. A fresh smear of blood tainted the floor; stars appeared before my eyes, and I felt more than a little faint, and almost missed Draco pulling himself out under Harry’s weight, then kicking Harry in the shins…

They were brawling. There was no other word for that. Harry kept his promise and didn’t use his magic, but neither did Draco, which, I recognised hazily, gave Harry a significant edge. Harry was stronger, faster. Draco excelled at doing the unexpected, like slamming a cabinet door against Harry’s hand, but while Harry had no qualms about pulling out the antique cream can from said cabinet and hitting Draco’s head with it, Draco refused to touch anything inside.

Maybe he didn’t want to break the butter churn he’d fixed on his first night here.

The second hand ticked, slowly, lazily, like it didn’t feel like working after so many years of rest, even if two lives, mental and ridiculous as they were, depended on it. Draco’s lower lip was broken, and a lens from Harry’s glasses had cracked. But they wouldn’t stop. They were in a deadlock, rolling on the floor in a heap, painting brushes of rust red everywhere. Harry’s robe was in shreds, showing off a long, angry scratch on his thigh. The button of Draco’s jeans was lost and the zipper dragged down. Not surprising, considering how hard Draco was grinding against Harry…

The second hand ticked even more languidly. _The_ Reparo _wasn’t sticking,_ I thought in alarm. I pulled myself out of the curtain heap and staggered towards it, weak with all the blood on the floor, trying to remember the way the pipes were organised, whether I could douse the second hand with cold water to rouse it, to keep it going. I tried to lift the clock from its holding nail, but it had no fire, no water magic…

The second hand stopped, the same time I heard a loud moan behind me. I turned in time to see Harry’s back arch, the last stretch of his robe and shirt slipping off his shoulder, his mouth opened in an _o_ like it was imitating the clock face. Draco caught his moaning mouth with his broken lips, cupped Harry’s face with both hands and then, he was making the exact same moaning sound, his hips giving Harry’s another thrust and stilled.

 _Oh._ The clock moved, finally, to my vigorous poking, and it fell. It landed on the table, an inch away from the pie, and rolled off it, landed on the floor in a spin.

The noise startled Harry and Draco. They turned to look. Draco smirked. Harry chuckled. “Ah, right, she’s watching,” he said, before he craned his neck and gave Draco a deep kiss.

My jaw dropped. These two were nuttier than squirrel poo.

Just let me interrupt the story and say this here, for the record. That wasn’t my most illustrious moment as a house spirit. _But I’m not a bedroom spirit_! I would protest much later, while Brad’s mouth would twist in his valiant effort to not laugh. _The proper thing to do is to dim the candles,_ he would explain, stiffly, holding his chuckles back, _put some music in the breeze, maybe stretch the blanket a little to allow for spooning._ I would shout, in defence, _But I work in the kitchen! I don’t know these things! I was in shock!_ I’d wave my arms dramatically. _SHOCK!!_

And that would be when Brad would decide to kiss me.

But that’s all for later. Now, back to the unfinished pie, the bloody floor, the two barmy wizards glowing with post-coital bliss, on said bloody floor.

“Care to tell me what’s that about?” Harry asked.

“What’s _that_?” Draco propped his head on his elbow and looked down at Harry, smug. He liked to keep Harry guessing, this much I could tell.

“All the _that_ s.”

“No,” Draco said, rolling off Harry. “I’m hungry.”

 

*~*~*~*

Draco also liked licking the burnt sugar off the fork. There’d been a skip in his step as he’d returned to the table, which Harry had missed, but I hadn’t. “This pie,” Draco announced, flashing a glance at Harry, “is trying to say you’re a show-off, and deserves to be punched in the face.”

He was answering Harry’s question from what had seemed centuries ago. _Do you understand what I’m trying to say?_

Harry broke off a piece of crust with his hands. The dry blood in his fingernails put more stars in my vision. “What I’m trying to say,” he said, looking squarely at Draco, through glasses he’d just repaired, “is you’ve assumed I have no standards. You’ve assumed I date anyone who comes home with me; I don’t.”

Draco hummed, seemingly nonchalant. But his next stab at the pie was a little too rough. Crumbs flew everywhere.

“I may be known for saving things,” Harry continued, his gaze at Draco unwavering, “but I don’t bother with things that are truly rotten.”

“So what are you going to do with me now?” Draco asked, sliding the fork between his lips, refusing to spare one look at Harry. “Pare away my Mark? Throw out my heart?”

“I can’t,” Harry replied, not missing a beat. “So I reckon, I’m all right with the whole of you.”

Draco hummed again. This time, he didn’t look nonchalant; he looked tired. The irreverence he’d carried with him since two months ago had all dissipated. He looked…heavy. Burdened. “Harry,” he said, putting down his fork. “We wouldn’t have met again if you hadn’t arrested me.”

“No charges pressed. And we went drinking after you got your release papers. And we came home after the drinking. Draco,” Harry lowered his voice. “You’re not a rotten crate. You’re not a bad apple. You sent those things to me because Christmas meant something to you too, and you freaked out, didn’t you? You wanted to remind me who you were; you thought I forgot. You thought I wanted you because I had no standards.”

Draco looked down, his eyelashes fluttered.

“Your thoughts were rather insulting,” Harry said lightly. “Insulting not only to yourself, but to me. Have you thought about that?”

“You arrested me in front of half the Ministry. The important half.” Draco’s eyes turned steely again. His tone was cutting and definite. If he’d talked to me like this his first night here, complained in this tone about Harry’s dietary choices, I would have found a way to throw him out of the kitchen. There wasn’t a smidge of friendliness in it, at all.

Harry looked unfazed. He looked older than I’d seen him too, despite the shredded cabbage state of his current wardrobe and his crazy hair. He opened his mouth, about to say something. Then, to my surprise, and to Draco’s too—I could tell from the way he shifted in his chair—Harry’s face split to a grin.

“You know what, Draco, I can’t defend what you did, but…” Harry hid his mouth behind the back of his hand, his fork dangling between his fingers. I could still see his amusement, his smile in the curve of his brilliant green eyes. “I don’t mind seeing it again. At least half of the Ministry, important and unimportant, don’t mind seeing it again.”

Draco tried to frown, but it didn’t work so well. The grey in his eyes sparkled at Harry’s smile. “I…I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Like I said, I’m not going to defend you. But…” Harry’s smile faded, his voice dropped and his expression turned serious. He straightened, and rested the fork beside his plate. “Those two wizards in charge of catering, you and I both know that they didn’t make a mistake. They knew full well the address they’d given you was actually for the banquet hall and not the kitchen, and they knew full well a state banquet would be happening at that time you’re asked to do the catering, with many of your…” he hesitated “…old family acquaintances around.”

Draco remained speechless. I could hear his magic going _drip, drip, drip; drip, drip, drip_ inside him. His magic was loud, I realised. Screaming loud. Harry’s, meanwhile, as much as it was ablaze, was controlled in its silence.

I huddled in its warmth, fiddling with the extra dough again.

“They wanted a show. They wanted a photo op in which someone would be humiliated. You delivered exactly what they wanted. You delivered straight…straight to those arseholes,” Harry said, cracking up one more. A corner of Draco’s mouth lifted. “And turnips. You delivered turnips.” Harry hid his mouth behind his hands again; the corner of his eyes crinkled. I had never seen Harry like this before, so mischievously happy. He took a calming breath before going on. “It took St Mungo’s the whole night to get them out. Healer Davies said I should pass on the message to you, if I see you again,—” a chuckle escaped; Harry took another breath to calm himself “—to please go with carrots next time and leave out the leaves.”

Draco listened, his hands on the lap, like he was caught in a stuffy banquet himself. His smile was faint and polite, but his magic was another story. I scrambled to hush the kettle, the water bubbling inside it.

Draco was dying with joy inside.

“I thought,” he said coolly, “you just said you had standards. You’d take home anyone who could make arse jokes.”

Harry leaned forward. “Why, Draco, did you come home with me?”

Draco opened his mouth.

“Honest answer only.”

Draco’s lips thinned.

“It shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Draco’s face hardened; so, I thought, did his heart, in five seconds flat.

The freezing was swift and complete.

“You may have standards, I don’t,” he began to drawl. The kettle lost its whistle in my arms; Harry’s smile dissipated too. Draco’s next words flowed like a river, eerily calm until it slammed a swimmer against the rocks. “You should know this. I go home with anyone who wears a bespoke robe and dragon hide boots, who has Galleons worth of potions in his hair, and gives awful speeches in state banquets where the audience claps anyway.”

Harry looked like Draco’s fork had belatedly stabbed him. “Why do you have to make everything so goddamn difficult?”

“Difficult?” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow. It was stiff, crooked in the middle, like a broken wing. “It’s just the truth, Potter. How much did that rag—” he nodded at the torn pieces of red on the floor “—cost you? Oh, never mind, it was the taxpayers’ Galleons, wasn’t it? Doesn’t the Ministry sponsor your wardrobe? Makes sure you look all dapper and whatnot?”

 _Shut up, Draco,_ I thought, sensing the sparks in Harry’s magic, the rip currents in Draco’s own, pulling everything under… _Shut up!_

“My father,—” Draco emphasised on _father_ ; Harry’s eyes widened “—he used to say, the Ministry had an outstanding tradition of making sartorial choices for the faces of the organisation. Its window dressings, so to speak. Has it taught you how to make the princess wave lately? Given you etiquette lessons? That must be where you learned to use a paper napkin so ostentatiously; Hogwarts Potter would never clean his mouth with more than a swipe, and of his sleeve, no less. Does it assign a governess for you? Did she say, _Oh, Mr Potter,_ ” he added a nasal tone to his drawl, “ _how could you shame Wizarding Britain with your looks and manners like that?_ ”

“Fuck you!” Harry stood and shouted, and I realised, in horror, that there had to be truth in Draco’s words. Harry’s face was beet red when he stepped over and grabbed Draco’s collar, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. He took a deep breath. Draco watched him with a smirk; his magic was dripping again. _Drip. Drip. Drip._ “I know what you’re doing, Mal…Draco,” Harry choked out finally. “You’re doing it again. You’re hiding behind your old self, like you did with the crates and the snake. Like you … like you—” he chewed on his lips, and spat out “—tried to poison me with the Draught of Living Death…”

Draco blanched.

“You think I didn’t know that? Well, lucky for you,” Harry let go of Draco’s collar, deflating. The flames on the stove, in the oven, dimmed, then died. His voice dropped, became low and hoarse. “I don’t die easily. Draco, how far are you planning to go with this? With your hiding? You said, don’t look for you in your farm because it’s your workplace. I’ve respected that, even though I know you live there, you sleep there every night. I’ve respected your never wanting to stay after sunrise. I’ve even respected your rather coming down to take things from the kitchen before sunrise. But on Christmas, Draco? Are we still in some sort of a war that I don’t know about? Some sort of a battle in which you have to outsmart me? If you think you’re winning, I’ll tell you this. I found you in Hogsmeade tonight because I’d already known you’d be there. You’d be there, collecting the rot from every stall, every shop, just to pretend you spite me, pretend you don’t care. There’s no way you could have that much rot at your disposal from your farm. How many hours have you spent doing that last month?”

Draco tilted his chin, said nothing. His stare could cut glass.

“Answer me.” Harry kicked his chair.

“Not long enough.”

“Draco, why?” Harry fell on his knees beside him. Draco struggled to avoid his gaze, but failed. Their eyes connected for a moment, and Draco looked away again. But it was enough. The flame in the oven flickered back to life with a faint, defiant _pop_. “Do you not want this? Did I read you wrong? Mrs Ellsworth—you’re right, she’s my etiquette teacher—doesn’t teach me this, doesn’t teach me how to deal with people like you. And the draught.” Harry raked his fingers into his hair and pulled it backwards. “I can arrest you for that. I’m supposed to arrest you for that. Where did you get that from? You know it’s a banned potion, and if someone else caught you with it you’re going straight back to Azkaban, right?”

 _Back_ , my brain noted in alarm. Harry said, _back to Azkaban._

I thought Draco wouldn’t say anything. Or, I imagined, squeezing the dough so hard that clumps of white stuck out between my fingers, he would murder Harry, maybe with the pie tin, and leave. But no. After a long, long wait, after his magic had dripped and crashed and churned, he replied. “Yes, I know.” His hand crawled slowly into his jean pocket, pulled out a small silver case, and placed it on the table.

Harry picked it up, as slowly as Draco had put it down. He pulled off the cap and turned the lower half. It was a lip balm. He looked at the patterns on the silver, the intricate vines and belladonnas growing around the letter “M” on each face of the case. “It’s your mum’s.”

Draco nodded. “She didn’t know who might enter her bedroom at night, when they were around,” he whispered. “This way, she could put someone to sleep. Or herself, if needs be.”

I couldn’t follow, but Harry closed his eyes for a moment. He reached out and rested a hand on Draco’s thigh. Draco didn’t back away. His water magic calmed to Harry’s touch.

“You know the dose?”

“Both lips painted,” Draco replied, still in a whisper, his downward gaze flickered towards Harry’s lips. “For full effect.”

Harry nodded. “How much did you paint for me? One lip? Half?” he asked.

“A dab.” Draco stole another look at Harry, his voice soft. “You’re a lightweight.”

Harry looked up and into Draco’s eyes. The concern in his own eyes didn’t fade at all with Draco’s answer. He spoke, quietly and gently. “Why are you carrying it around? Have you needed to use it elsewhere? On someone else?” He paused, before asking. “On yourself?”

Draco shook his head, once. “I feel safer.”

Harry nodded, squeezed Draco’s knee once. They remained in silence for a while. “If I let you choose,“ Harry opened his mouth again, finally, “what do you want me to do with this?”

More silence. Draco looked at Harry, while Harry examined the case, then recapped it. Then, abruptly, Draco stood and stretched, like a Kneazle in the sun. “I want you to show me where your towels are,” he announced, his voice strong again with a hint of a drawl, and he yawned. “I’m filthy and tired and I want to take a shower and go to bed.”

 

 


	5. Speechless - I

I watched, my mouth opened to an _o_ , as Draco scrubbed every floor tile clean on his knees. He did it like folks who…really liked scrubbing floor tiles. I’d never imagined someone would do it this way, cleaning one tile completely before moving to the next. The circles he drew were round and precise, just large enough to reach the four edges. Then, he used the corner of the sponge to clean up the corners of the tile.

He’d been reckless with his magic on other things. He’d toasted the left over pie with a quick _Incendio_ —it was brilliant, really—and devoured it for breakfast. He’d Scourgified the counters and the stovetop, Levitated the utensils and dropped them at the right places and set the clock right with a _Tempus_ : 4:21am. _Harry’s awake,_ he’d said to me, giving the second hand a little shove with his finger. _I told him I wanted to come down on my own_. I didn’t know if I should believe him, but the lip balm had stayed in the kitchen all night.

 _Splash._ The floor tiles got another shower. I shivered, felt goosebumps on every inch of my skin as his magic washed over me again, as his eyes raked over me for leftover stains. _I’m sorry about the blood_ , he whispered, _I know it’s horrid for homes_. He drew a lazy circle on a tile, checking for oil slick, and my cheeks heated with his touch, flamed red as his lips. He’d chewed on them while he’d scrubbed the tiles, but they’d already been more red than pink when he’d showed up in the kitchen…

Neither he nor Harry had returned after the requested towel showing last night. Couldn’t say that’d been unexpected; the button of Draco’s jeans was still under a chair. For the several hours after they’d left, I’d kicked it with my toes, while curled up under the table and staring at the mess in the kitchen: the unwashed plates, the rust-red floor and the clock, still face down from its tumble, its three hands kicking desperately under the weight. The extra dough in my hand had turned into a half cooked lump, like a Stottie cake.

Brad had tried to talk with me, but I didn’t feel like talking.

I’d tried, in vain, to make sense of what I’d seen. The rotten apples, the fight, the coupling, the lip balm. Especially the lip balm. I’d thought about the conversation, about Harry not seeming to care that Draco had used it on him, but asking Draco if he’d thought of using it on himself. I’d thought about them in this kitchen: Harry’s sleepless nights, his crying to his speeches, his dull, drunken gaze when the stranger had pounded into him; Draco’s humming when he’d chosen his loot, his funny commentaries about Harry’s diet choices, his Cheshire cat grin when he’d repaired that butter churn…

Draco was supposed to be the happy one.

I’d tried then, in more vain—how would one call an attempt more in vain than “in vain”?—to make sense of myself. My own happiness. My sanity. One minute I’d felt terrified and sick of everything and wished Harry and Draco would disappear forever. The next minute, I’d rooted for them, I’d fallen in love with them all over again, and poured my magic to make the kitchen the most perfect backdrop for whatever hell they had set to let loose.

Why wasn’t I a cold-hearted spy as house spirits were meant to be? My heart was twisting, hurting from the exertion.

And what had I got in return, so far? Harry had never given thought about me until the evening before. Draco, he’d given thoughts, but only for the sake of pilfering. Both had just made a battlefield out of the floor.

Were we house spirits so in love with love that we were willing to do anything, lose ourselves even, to find minuscule scraps of it in rotten crate after rotten crate?

A draft wheezed through a crack under the window. The smell of Harry’s blood was faint, but draining all the same. I wiped my eyes, forgetting there was nothing in them—I was too exhausted to cry anymore—and I closed them, but not for long. Soon, Draco marched into the kitchen with a skip in his steps. He was wearing Harry’s T-shirt and jeans, and his eyes sparkled, far too bright for the darkest hour before sunrise. His lips were red and swollen, and there was a bruise—was that what people call a hickey?—on one side of his neck.

“Good morning,” he’d said, before setting off for the tidy-up.

I’d watched him, starting with eating the leftover pie for breakfast. I hadn’t had the will to stop myself, hadn’t had the will to not warm the kitchen with a ring of flames, or keep to myself the apple scent I’d memorised from the night before. Draco had wiped the oven screen after a sniff of the fragrant air and smiled a smile that’d been so wide, so grateful that I’d known, I’d do anything to help him stay in this cottage. To help him stay with Harry.

I’d cried again, and he’d heard it. He hadn’t twisted the tap tight but wiped a finger against the _drip, drip, dripping_ mouth where my tears had flowed. _Shh_ , he’d whispered, _Shh_.

And I’d heard that _drip, drip, drip_ of his water magic back.

Finally, he was standing at his usual vantage point, at the centre of the kitchen, looking happy with the floor’s cleanliness. With a wave of his wand, the remaining water droplets on the floor tiles found their way back into the sink, in an arc like a rainbow—he’d spelled each a different colour, bright and happy like sweets in a confectionery store. I smiled and teared up again, as he squeezed the water off the sponge and Transfigured it back to the parchment sheet he’d torn out from Harry’s notebook. It was stained, blotches of brown. Draco sat down with it and picked up the quill.

I wiped my face dry, in utmost vain, and wondered what he would say. There was no point in leaving hints anymore, was there?

But minutes later, Draco dropped the quill back on the still-blank parchment. He walked over to the cabinets and opened the doors again, one by one. He was careful, as usual, but his humming, his smirk was gone. This time, he found Alfred’s oven mitts, navy blue with bright flowers that were charred at the fingers. He wore them, examined them on his hands for a moment, before shoving the left one in his pocket, and leaving the right one on the table, the padded fingers wrapped around the silver lip balm case.

“I’m sorry,” he said to me, again.

 

 


	6. Andromeda's Advice

Takeaway cartons and Muggle pre-packed meals became memories in the cottage from that day on. Twice a week, at six forty-five pm sharp, Harry would receive the freshest carton of groceries, filled to the brim with eggs and dairy and the most colourful, succulent selection of vegetables and fruits. Then, exactly fifteen minutes later, Draco would show up in his earthy jeans and T-shirt, clamour on about how famished he was, take a chair by the kitchen table, and demand Harry to show off his cooking skills like the tosser that he was.

And Harry would oblige, in his expensive clothes and with a smile on his face, and sometimes, a middle finger raised in Draco’s direction. He’d learned cooking the Muggle way, that much was certain; often, he’d start with spells for something like marinating or dicing, only to end up with his wand between his teeth and his hands flying between the food and pots and knives and condiment bottles. It was a bit of a pity, since the cottage and I got less of his magic, but Draco’s response, his fidgeting in the chair in tune with each flexing of Harry’s muscles, had more than made up for it, had supplied more than enough magic to make me grow…

I’d clench my thighs, keenly aware of the dampness in between, while Draco would shift in his seat again and take another gulp of water.

I’d huddle myself, keenly aware, too, of how my arms wouldn’t rest quite close to myself anymore, how my chest would feel tender with my arms pressed against it. My face would burn, and the broccoli florets and courgette slices in the pan would sizzle, and Harry would flip them over with a frown and turn down the heat.

Between the two of them, Harry was still far more likely to forget my presence.

 _This isn’t right,_ Brad had insisted. He hadn’t had a growth spurt like mine, but he’d gained back a shade of Earth, enough for me to lose sight of the thoughts going on inside him, the worries that had propelled him to take permanent shelter in a corner of the attic, his fingers idly playing with the wood shavings and dead mice on the floor…

I slid my fingers down along his fringe, its shade somewhere between Ron’s and Draco’s. I did it the way Harry did with Draco’s hair sometimes, spiralling my fingertips as they chased the hair’s glint from the sun, or from a memory of the sun. With Brad, only memories were doable these days. The sun couldn’t reach him anymore.

He pushed my hand away. _What’s bothering you so much?_ I asked again.

He looked down, wrapped his knees closer to his chest. He looked small like that. He’d never looked small to me, even when the winds had taken over much of his substance. He’d always been the one I’d looked up to, my one and only Himly spirit. _Tell me_ , I insisted. _Please_.

 _You won’t care what I say_ , he hissed. _You’re infatuated with them._

_Please, Brad._

Brad tilted his chin and looked at me, darkly. The rim of his eyes had turned red, not with sadness, but with something…not nice. My hand, the one he’d pushed away, retreated even further towards the twisting heartbeats inside my chest. _I don’t know if Draco’s here for Harry, or for the house,_ Brad sounded like the whistling winds in a barren forest. _I don’t know if he’s fallen for Harry, or_ —his terrible gaze swept down, from my face to my body that hadn’t felt like mine— _he’s fallen in love with you…something about you._

I’d gasped, and staggered away from him. _That’s impossible._

 _That’s impossible_ , I’d told myself since, while Draco showed up earlier and earlier in the kitchen. He often had books with him—cooking manuals, homemaking guides. He rummaged in the icebox and followed recipes, their every ingredient already available from the latest delivery. He made kitchen helpers big and small: juice bowls and egg timers, kitchen fans out of clover leaves that he’d line up along the stove top, the ovens, even the ceiling lights.

 _You’re burning up again_ , he teased me with a smirk, then a grin. The grin was as disconcerting as clothes worn on top of an invisibility cloak…

Because, on some nights, Draco showed up with nothing but a pillow. Sometimes, he coiled up on the floor with it, and I’d try, as much as I could, to ignore the heaving of his chest, the thrusting of his hips against the thing. I’d feel the pain of the cotton as he’d bite down hard on its corner to stifle a moan. I’d shudder with the echo of his climax as he’d cast a _Scourgify_ and lie there, face flush and panting. He’d look like an unfinished artwork then, hard, chiseled in some places and soft, ethereal in others. He’d stretch, and his hands would caress the floor, caress me, while his fine blond hair flowed like a cascade against the tiles.

Half of me would wish to touch him, run my fingers through the hair; the other half of me would wish to threaten him with a bald shave until he’d confess what was going on.

Not that I could hold a razor, or a knife.

Harry could. But then, he’d let Draco do whatever Draco pleased. He no longer came staggering down to the kitchen in the mornings; instead, he came with an expression far more suited to his red tailored robe.

The burnt food in the icebox, Harry would finish it all, not even pulling a face as he’d do so. He’d be too mesmerised by the bounty of broken things in front of him: the blades of kitchen fans that’d blown away with one turn, the egg timers that’d cracked open before they chimed, the mummified pieces of fruit swimming in their juices. He’d touch them, and they’d smoke, as Draco’s magic was wont to do when Harry’s confronted it.

Harry would put the remnants away in the toaster box, a knot of confusion between his brows.

The pillow, he’d hug it in his arms, bury his nose in it and inhale, his eyes closed. I’d wonder if he could smell all that had happened in there. The flames of his magic would be soft, their tips swaying, reaching upward, searching.

I’d be searching too, with my magic. With him.

 _You’ve been quiet_ , he whispered to me on the first morning of April. _I reckon you hate me now._ He looked around, at the places Draco had left scars on. Bits of clover leaves and eggshells and fruit. _I haven’t taken care of you._

No, I wanted to answer. I didn’t hate him. I could never hate him. I was just confused, and afraid. Draco’s magic had been flooding into me, its power and its chaos, and I didn’t know what to do. My flames on the stovetop flickered between pure blue and pure gold; even they couldn’t decide the colours they wanted to be.

I’d never had magic so refined before. I’d never felt so lost before.

 _Draco lost his ancestral home a few years ago,_ Harry spoke to the fire. _What he’s been doing here is related, I think, but how_ —he shook his head— _I don’t know_.

His magic fed into mine, a slow chase for the gold in the flame. He remained quiet, pensive—

—Until his eyes widened, and a name burst out between his lips.

 _Andromeda_.

 

*~*~*~*

Andromeda visited the same day new clothes arrived for Harry.

Brad had withdrawn even more. His head was permanently turned to face the darkest wall in the attic; all I could see of him was his jawline and a blond fuzz on there that I hadn’t seen before. Nothing had changed on his end, that was all he said.

Luckily, things had been busy in the kitchen to keep me distracted. After the Andromeda realisation, Harry had found a new resolve to crack the mystery that was Draco and his attachment to the kitchen. On the weekends, he’d Levitated everything out of the cabinets and tallied the divided pairs: the lonely glove; the salt shaker without its pepper; the forks missing their knives, the pots shouting for their lids. Hermione and Ron had come by to help. They hadn’t talked about Draco much. Hermione had read Harry scraps of information about us house spirits, nothing I hadn’t heard before.

I’d lain on my belly beside Alfred and Elaine’s things, kicking my legs in the air. I was bored.

 _Those ancient families_ , Hermione grumbled, _they don’t write down anything_.

 _I asked Mum and Dad_ , Ron supplied after her, _they said they’re probably made from the same kind of old magic that kept you alive at the Dursleys. Powerful stuff, but we can’t control it. So there’s no point thinking about it._ He clapped his hands free of pie crumbs, and pressed a greasy fingerprint on Elaine’s gravy boat. _Bear in mind, this came from people who’re happy with a ghoul in their attic._

Ghouls? I wrinkled my nose in distaste. Not to be boastful, but I was better looking than that. The icebox blew a raspberry with its pipes.

 _I think_ , Harry said, crouched on the floor and matching the set of wine glasses, _you’ve offended Miss Kitchen Spirit with the ghoul talk here_.

 _Miss?_ Hermione asked, brows raised.

 _Yeah. Miss._ Harry didn’t look up, but his lips curved. He couldn’t have known; he was…pulling Hermione’s pigtails. He’d looked happier and more relaxed since this had started, this…what Ron had called _The Latest Episode of Draco Malfoy was Up to Something_. He wore his old Muggle tees and jeans often, and his hair had forgotten what a comb looked like.

I bobbed my chin on my palms, watched my Harry lose himself in his tallying task. He went on his fours to reach for the teapot on the other side of the plates. He bent at his narrow hips, his buttocks round and solid like two cantaloupes…

I gulped. Where had that thought come from? It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen those cantaloupes…I mean buttocks naked before. But I’d never noticed them, thought of them that way. And Brad’s buttocks…

I blushed, yanked my thoughts off their track. It was all Harry’s fault. He was just too _cute_.

I thought I’d have missed his tailored robes and crisp shirts, but no, I decided. This iteration of Harry, messy and on a mission, was really my cup of tea. This Harry, who looked like he’d never belong on a podium, never mind make a speech.

But messy Harry gave way to well-dressed Harry again, on the day of Andromeda’s visit. There were twinkles in Harry’s magic while he made tea. The leaves had arrived from London the day before: darjeeling white, first flush. I inhaled, deeply; I’d never smelled anything quite like that. Alfred and Elaine were resolute breakfast tea people.

Harry clapped his forehead at the milk he’d poured into the tea, swore under his breath and scrambled for a clean teacup.

My interest was more than piqued. The twinkles in his magic, the milk in the tea…Harry was nervous. I cradled the kettle with my hands to keep the water just short of bubbling, but alas, I didn’t have an audience seat for long. Andromeda was a proper guest and was invited into the living room.

It was a long chat later that she stepped past the kitchen’s threshold, a long coat in her arms. Harry’s sartorial choice became understandable then. She was a stately looking witch, features more hard than delicate, her brown and grey hair tied up in a severe bun. But her breaths were soft, and so was her wool ensemble. The jumper pilled at all the right places a well-worn, well-beloved jumper should pill. The black trousers looked warm and comfortable.

“Can you feel her?” Harry asked. “The spirit?”

Andromeda opened her eyes. “No,” she replied. “But I don’t expect myself to.” Her voice was soft, too, and surprisingly kind. She sighed after her reply. “The House of Blacks…I doubt it was ever a home for house spirits. You know how Grimmauld place felt like, Harry. There was little love under the roof.”

Harry listened, didn’t agree or disagree.

“People always assumed I was the first Black to marry for love. It was Cissy. Say what you want about the Malfoys, but they…” She looked around, nodded almost to herself. “If one home in Wizarding history had house spirits that could move mountains, the Malfoy manor would be it.”

She walked past Harry into the kitchen. Her hands brushed against the table and the counters, like Harry’s had on his first visit here. The tapping of her pumps against the floor tiles was light but steady. Tapping in the same rhythm too, was her Earth magic, listening for an answer, but not waiting. Those steps, that rhythm, waited for no one.

I did what I had done, too, on Harry’s first visit. I lit up the oven fire.

She stopped pacing.

“The spirit is rather excitable,” she remarked but didn’t approach for a closer look. “How old is this place? How many couples have lived here?”

“Around a hundred years old. A couple built it and lived here for sixty some years.”

“One couple. That was all?”

“Yeah, the Ministry reclaimed the place for several decades before I bought it.”

“That couple, how did they end their stay here?”

“Alfred died of a blood curse. Elaine…,” Harry hesitated. “A Muggle spotted her with magic and she was sent to a Muggle asylum. She…she never came back.”

Andromeda nodded, stated matter-of-factly. “It wasn’t Ministry policy at the time to track down the Squibs.” Without waiting for Harry to respond—or was it sparing Harry a response?—she followed immediately with another question. “Do you know what happened to her in the asylum?”

Sheepishness crept into Harry’s features. “I don’t know.”

Andromeda’s face turned hard. I squinted from my seat on the stove top—I knew it wasn’t the wisest of me to sit on something so ignitable, especially when Harry was around, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get too close to Andromeda either—and I focused at her cheekbones. The way they cut into the face, the shadow they cast…I thought I saw Draco in them.

“Harry,” Andromeda said, her tone severe as her bun. “It’s a wonder the spirits haven’t caused you trouble.”

“They’re friendly.” Harry countered, defiance palpable despite his guilt. I covered my fluttering heart with my hands. My flames fluttered, too.

“They are. But…” She softened at Harry’s fidgeting. She draped her coat on the backrest of a chair and sat down. “Harry, when I said, just now, I’ve wondered how Draco and Cissy survived the house arrest without food, I was thinking about spirits that had reached the height of their magic. That process takes hundreds of years, generations of loving couples who keep the magic going under the roof. The spirits here,” she nodded at the oven, at me, “they’re at most teenagers.”

“What does that mean?” Harry asked.

“That means,” Andromeda said, “they’re children. They make mistakes children make, they need what children need. If they aren’t properly cared for, if they don’t feel safe, they can wreak havoc to a home.” She paused, waited for Harry to meet her in the eye. “Children need guardians for care and safety. Guardians of house spirits are the providers of their magic—Alfred and Elaine, before you. And children need to know what happens to their guardians to be happy, even if they may not be lucky enough to know them as well as they’d like, or stay with them as long as they’d wanted.” Her expression softened even more. “You understand that perfectly, don’t you?”

Harry closed his eyes, and gave a nod.

“Even as grown-up spirits, they aren’t that different. They need closure with the people who nurtured them. The spirits at the Manor must have known their end was near; that place had seen too much bloodshed for them to live. But they still insisted on finding their closure. They took care of Draco and Cissy when it couldn’t have been easy for them, they—and Cissy—being ill as they were.” She sighed. “And these were spirits powerful enough to take the Manor with them when they passed. Saying goodbyes is important to them, Harry. Remember, they failed their original roles because they learned loyalty. They learned love.”

Harry shoved his hands in his pocket. He stood there, like an admonished child. “I don’t know what to do.”

Andromeda patted the table, gesturing at Harry to sit with her.

“You don’t, but …” She waited for Harry to look up, “But I’d wager, Draco does.”

“You said I shouldn’t ask him—”

“You’re thinking like a Gryffindor.” Andromeda’s smile was small but indulgent; she loved Harry, and her Earth magic was affecting. I yawned and stretched, feeling safe and solid, despite her critical words. “Many things in life, Harry, you don’t need to ask to find out. You don’t need Draco to give you a blow-by-blow account of what happened at the manor; it was painful enough for him. You don’t need him to discuss his possible life debt to kitchen spirits, whom he couldn’t repay; he may not even be aware of it himself. But observe, Harry, and be patient, and the answers will come to you. Draco is half Black. If you like him, if you want to be with him, then it’s time to learn how the Blacks, and the Malfoys operate. Subtlety is your friend.”

“Andromeda, I’m—”

Andromeda studied Harry’s fluttering eyelashes, his chewed lips. “I guess I should have left out the ‘if’s,” she said lightly, and Harry looked down, a deep flush creeping up from his shirt collar. I tuned the oven fire to a softer gold, held the heat down just a smidge. “My nephew is a lucky man.” She smiled. “Why don’t you start by finding more about Alfred and Elaine? Mrs Granger-Weasley can help. Then, invite Draco over, ask for his advice on what to do with their things. He grew up in a home filled with house spirits, his instincts will know what to do. And he’ll want to do this, if our guesses are right. The idea of bringing peace to the house spirits will soothe him, and it’s a far easier task than running a farm just to keep iceboxes everywhere well fed.”

“What if we guessed wrong?”

“Then,” Andromeda said, picking up her coat again. “You’ll have the beginnings of a real home. Your first real home, Harry. How long do you plan on borrowing from people you don’t know? The furniture, the kitchenware…Draco isn’t the only one who’s thieving here. You’re taking advantage of the life Alfred and Elaine built, the home they shared, and giving little back. And if love is what keeps a home standing, keeps the house spirits growing, then you’re stealing from the spirits too. You’re stealing their love. Have you ever thought of it that way?”

“I…”

Andromeda smiled and stood, and rested on hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I’ve stolen like that too, Harry. It’s not just you. Too many people have failed to understand this—that it’s one thing to love someone, it’s another to build a home with the same love. Ted showed me, taught me how to do it. It takes much more than spending time together in the bedroom.“

Harry turned beet red and raked his fingers through his hair. It stuck out, as it’d been prone to do these days. Andromeda smiled, and headed towards the door.

“Speaking of time together,” she turned her head back at Harry at the threshold, “Teddy has been asking about his godfather. This home, this cottage—” she looked around the kitchen one last time, before stepping out “—isn’t the only one that can always do with more love.”

 

 


	7. Brad's Revolt

I tried to tell Brad about Andromeda’s visit. He told me to go away. _I’m sick of it_ , he said. _I’m sick of them._

Them. Harry and Draco.

_I’m sick of you._

That night, Harry staggered into the kitchen. He hadn’t done that since Draco had given up the silver case. He’d wrapped himself in his blanket; still, he was shivering head-to-toe, and I scrambled to warm the kitchen with every flame I had. He scanned the contents of the icebox, but the door slammed shut soon after, and he left, only to return with a bottle of Ogden’s Old. He slumped in a chair and drank.

His eyes were dull and bloodshot. He didn’t cry, though I almost wished he did. His fire magic scorched everything, itself included, as the Firewhisky burned down his throat.

The next three nights, he came to the kitchen with the Ogden’s Old already in hand. _This time of the year is difficult for me_ , he tried to explain. But the shivering was new, as was the bottle tipping into his mouth…

He blacked out every night from the ashes of his magic. He owled Draco. _I’m travelling_ , he lied.

I ran up to the attic. Brad was sitting by the window, for once, the wind whistling behind him. He sat there, his spine rigid, his face brown with wood shaving. His hair reeked of dead pests.

 _The winds are only repeating the scenes in his dreams._ He smirked, darkly, looking up at me. _The sights, the sounds of those dreams, they’re all his._

Those nightmares. The ones that’d used to make Harry come to the kitchen in the middle of the night in tears. Brad was amplifying them, making them repeat, over and over again, in Harry’s mind with his winds…

 _No!_ I shouted.

_What do you think he’s made of, flowers and sunshine? Look at him, Kate. He’s got blood on his hands. Blood…_

I stepped backward, shaking my head. I knew Harry’s blood. I’d seen his pain. But Brad… I stared at my Himly spirit I’d come to existence with, my Himly spirit I’d trusted and loved all my life. How could he do this? How could he hurt the human in our home? How could he hurt a human at all? Hadn’t he always wanted to be human?

_He hurt us first, Kate._

I covered my mouth, turned and ran.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the kitchen, Harry had picked up his quill again. The empty bottle in his other hand slipped out from his shaky grip and fell on the floor as he turned over a new leaf in his notebook and wrote,

_Here we’ve gathered again, to celebrate the life of…_

 

*~*~*~*

On the fifth night of Harry’s nightmares, the kitchen window split and parted. The glass rippled, like a stage curtain.

A shock of blond hair appeared. Draco listened for a while, smiled a mischievous smile and crawled through the window, landing in the kitchen with a clean hop. A cloud of awful smell followed him. I sniffed and made a face. Poop. _Chicken_ poop, if the feather on his hair was to go by. What was his doing so late with chickens? I watched his puffy eyes and what appeared to be an antique Victorian nightshirt hanging on him, its white cotton splotched yellow with age. Did he fell asleep in this, with a flock of chickens?

He closed the glass curtain with a flourish of his wand. I would have clapped, if I could. I’d never been happier to have an intruder in my life.

His smile faded, when he saw the empty bottles of Firewhisky on the floor. It was gone when he sniffed the untouched bowl of chicken soup, covered with unappetising pieces of broken grease but smelled nowhere near five-days old.

He frowned, his pink lips thinned. He strode out of the kitchen and back again, tossed his very soiled trainers at the corner, and strode out again.

I picked up a shoe with two fingers, pinched my nose with another two, and squinted at the stains.

Yes, chickens.

 

*~*~*~*

Brad would refuse to tell me what happened when Draco found Harry gravely ill in the bedroom. I wouldn’t insist; his face would be so drawn with regret that I wouldn’t have it in me.

All I knew was, then, I’d soon get to see Draco in the sun for the first time. He looked eerie, almost like he’d visited from beyond the veil. His irises were so light that his eyes looked like there were nothing but two dark holes inside them, ready to suck people in. He was still deathly pale, but there was a hint of fire in his complexion, a soft gold against his bluish veins and in the strands of hair he’d tied up with a string. He was making breakfast, and that would have carried a shade of gold too—comedy gold—if he didn’t look so flustered, calling Harry a git under his breath while trying to crack the mystery of egg cooking again. The product was crunchy, as usual, and dotted with eggshells. _Calcium_ , he mumbled, as he tackled the bread next, threw it in the pan with oil and—

 _Fooosh_! A tiny volcano erupted in the pan. I huffed and puffed steam onto it—it was a new skill of mine. A black, soggy mess soon stared at us. Draco tossed it into the bin.

He spent a moment thinking after that, standing at his spot at the centre of the kitchen, retying his loosened hair. His nightshirt had gained polka dots of oil and yolk, and holes from the bread lava too. It had fallen off one of his shoulders, its top buttons undone while he’d sweated over the food. Under the shadows of its hem, his legs were shaved, and impossibly long. He should’ve looked ridiculous, but—

 _Sexy_ , my brain supplied. _He looks sexy_.

The icebox whirled, while I felt a little like swooning. I—well, it, the icebox—caught Draco’s attention. He opened the door and looked inside.

 _This may do_ , he whispered, Summoning the milk and yoghurt and the berries and setting them on a counter.

He was right. Ten minutes and several spells I’d never thought could be used on food later ( _Tarantallegra!_ ), he had a glass of frothy, creamy, fruity concoction with his plate of crunchy eggs. He flashed his Cheshire-Cat-defeating grin again and disappeared from the kitchen with them.

Hermione arrived in the kitchen in his absence, looking even more flustered than he had been, in a beautiful peacock-blue robe with similar tailoring as Harry’s red one. She dropped her purse on the counter. Her dripping purse, I noticed, scrambling to direct the water towards the sink with my hands. _Sick with nightmares_ , I read on the wrinkled owl-note clutched in her fist, the few words in Draco’s wild, beautiful script yet untouched by her sweat. The source of the dripping soon revealed itself: an oversized bunch of kale. She shook off the excess water, mumbled something about being stupid and forgetting an _Impervious_ charm, Summoned a knife in the drawer— _the sharpest one_ , she specified—and started chopping. She looked calm, and her cutting, methodical, but only when the blade caught did she notice the owl-note she’d bundled with the greens. She picked out the sliced off parchment bits, one by one, mumbling to herself again.

As soon as Harry appeared in the kitchen, she demanded that Harry move in with her. “You shouldn’t be going to the memorial events either,” she said, while Harry listened, barely propping himself up in the chair.

Draco narrowed his eyes at the greens intruder, the greens that hadn’t grown in his care. But he bit his lip and said nothing, while listening to Hermione’s concerned, if repetitive—very repetitive—words for Harry. Quietly, he retreated towards the door and leaned against the door frame, leaving his back towards Harry as he waited for Harry’s answer.

His water magic was dripping again. _Drip. Drip. Drip._

I waited with him. Hermione’s kale was dripping on the floor, but I didn’t care. I, too, retreated into the shadows, into the oven where everyone thought I belonged. Harry should say yes, I knew. Yes to moving in with his friends who could cook, who could take care of him. Yes to moving in with people who would really be there for him, not just in the bedroom, not just before sunrise. Yes to moving in to a real home, not a place like this, old and outdated, with a bedroom spirit who was furious at him.

But I’d miss him. I’d miss him so much.

Hermione stopped, finally. Her talking, her chopping. She turned and looked at Harry. I craned my neck from inside the oven and looked at her. She hadn’t stopped talking, after all. Her big, brown eyes were still pleading.

Harry shook his head. “The house needs me,” he whispered, his voice weak and coarse. A pause, and he looked around. “They need me.”

“They?” Hermione asked, and she put down the knife and pushed it aside. She turned towards the oven, at where they’d all imagined I would be, at where I was. She looked exasperated.

“They,” Harry repeated.

Hermione opened her mouth.

“Hermione.”

Her mouth closed. She sighed, and turned to him again, even with the exasperation, the frustration still etched on her face. “You think you can help me find out what happened to Elaine Wright?”

Draco visibly shuddered at the name. His bowed head lifted and turned towards Harry, his eyes wide.

He couldn’t possibly have known who Elaine was. And if he had known, he couldn’t possibly have cared.

“I think,” Harry said, his head and his wild hair succumbing to gravity to land on the table. He’d seen what I’d seen. Draco’s reactions.“I’ve talked enough about celebrating life. I should put it in practice. Draco,” he tilted his chin at Draco, smiled a faint smile. Draco returned his gaze, his eyes bright against the haze in Harry’s. “You think you can help?”

Draco blinked, looking confused.

“You think you’ll celebrate it with me? Come here.”

It took a while for Draco to decide to comply, to lift the tail of his shirt to kneel beside Harry. Harry smiled wider, and Draco reached out, slowly swept the black fringe aside. I knew a scar was there, in the shape of a lightning bolt, but I’d never seen it burn so brightly before. I gasped, wanting to kick Brad in the shins.

“I think you’re fevered out of your mind. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Draco felt Harry’s forehead, leaned forward and laid down a kiss. “ _You_ don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Hermione had turned her focus back to her chopping, heavier handed than before. The rhythmic _chop, chop, chop_ drowned out Harry’s and Draco’s voices in her corner.

“We’ll celebrate,” Harry whispered. His magic was like a match’s flame, weak but uncontrolled; he had to be burning up again. _Please, Hermione_ , I thought, _drop the knife, go find Elaine. I know it’s selfish, coming from me, but please. Please help Brad find his closure._ It was useless, I knew; she could sense me, but she couldn’t _feel_ me. I couldn’t feel her either. I was still lost on which element her magic was.

“We’ll celebrate the life of you, me, Hermione, Ron, Teddy, Andromeda,” Harry continued, as Draco knelt closer to him. “Everyone who’s actually living.” He chuckled. Draco cupped his cheek with his palm, listening, his expression soft and his magic rippling like the deepest seas, ever changing, ever unreadable. “I’ll dress Teddy in the robes they sent me, bring him on the podium with me and I’ll say, introducing Edward Lupin, son of Remus, son of Tonks, and he’ll say…he’ll say ‘Hi’.”

“‘Hi,’” Draco repeated with a soft laugh. “People pay hundreds of Galleons to sit in those dinners, and the keynote says ‘Hi.’”

Harry nodded, his glasses askew from his face pressed against the table. Draco pried them off gently and put them aside. Harry’s eyes, they were so, so green.

“Your harvest, Draco, will be on every table. Fresh, rainbowy vegetables, berries, fruits,…tulips.” Diffused as his gaze was, Harry tried to fix it on Draco as much as he could. He reached out with his arm on the table; it lost strength and fell to his side. “I never told you how much I hated myself for arresting you that night. You…you were trying to move on. You were trying to live. They wouldn’t let you and I…I helped and…”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Draco said again, a little louder, a little sharper. Hermione’s chopping skipped a beat. Draco looked down; he let out a sigh, imperceivable if not for the rise and fall of his chest. “You were only doing your job,” he whispered, “like I was doing mine.”

“Okay,” Harry seemed to have forgotten what he’d confessed already. He tried to lift his hand again and this time, he made it, though it was weak, shaking—and the tie in Draco’s hair came off, then his fringe came tumbling down and it glinted in the sun. “We’ll have your chicken friends there too,” Harry said, chasing the glow with his eyes like it was the last thing he could see, “clucking in the banquet hall. We’ll celebrate their lives too, as they go _cluck cluck cluck, cluck cluck cluck_ …” And maybe it was the last thing he could see, for Harry’s eyelids were setting over his green irises. “Draco, celebrate with me.”

Draco nodded, slowly first, then faster and faster, but Harry couldn’t see it anymore. His eyes were closed. Draco waited until Harry’s breaths had evened. “He was asking me to celebrate life with him, when—” he turned to Hermione, whose chopping had stopped when Draco had spoken up again“—when he wouldn’t let me share his nightmares with him. I…I invited myself here last night. He never told me what was going on.”

Hermione put down the knife. “Draco, you don’t want his nightmares.”

“I don’t want them, but I wanted to stay here—”

“Here, with him? Or, here, with the kitchen?”

Draco opened his mouth. He blinked. In the oven, I muted my gasp with my own hands.

“Draco, do you think Harry hasn’t noticed?” She was whispering, but her words were rapid-fire. She’d prepared them, held them close to her for a long time. “We—Harry and Ron and I—had a tally of the things you’ve taken out of the kitchen, and that’s not counting the other things you’ve done in here. I—” She turned towards the table, towards Draco, her arms crossed against her chest, but her face remained twisted sideways and her head was shaking. “—I’ve been losing sleep every night since Harry told me about you two. I couldn’t talk to him. I botched it up myself.” The Argument, I remembered. “I’ve gained a lot of respect for you, Draco, for how you’ve turned around, how you’ve picked yourself up. But…” She stopped. She braced her forehead with one hand, and I realised, she was crying. A line of tears, sparkling bright in the sun, had wetted her cheek. “What do you want from Harry, Draco? What do you want from my friend? Can you please— _please_ —tell me?”

Draco looked stunned. He blinked again, still on his knees. “I want him,” he whispered.

He didn’t sound convinced.

“What about the kitchen?” If Hermione felt his doubt, she wasn’t showing it. Did she feel it? Hermione, who couldn’t feel anything I said?

“I…” Draco swallowed. His magic was dripping again. _Drip. Drip. Drip_. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t—”

“I just want to. There are things I feel I need to do.” Draco’s eyes were fixed on the floor, his words, barely audible. “I want Harry, but…I want him and I want these things…”

“ _These things?_ ” Hermione repeated, looking pained, puzzled. “What are _these things?_ The pots and pans? Every saucer in the cabinet? What do you even do with them? Use them to feed your chickens?”

Draco remained quiet, still.

“Tell me!”

Draco shook his head.

“Did you sell them?”

Draco glanced up, his face hardened. “No.”

“Did you turn them into something else?”

“No.” It turned even harder.

“Look, Draco, if there’s financial hardship—”

“No!” Draco bellowed.

Hermione covered her mouth with one palm, and tried, in vain, to blink her tears away. She took a breath and calmed herself, at the sight of Harry fidgeting at the table.

Draco watched her tears fall. He looked cold still, but his water magic trickled with her tears, and there was another rush of decisions made and unmade. He stood up and approached Hermione.

Hermione wiped her tears away and squared her jaw at him.

Draco reached into his nightshirt and pulled out a small satchel. A small piece of string was attached to it; there must have been a loop on the inside of the shirt for it to tie on. The satchel was pearl white, no bigger than a pack of takeaway ketchup. Hermione’s eyes widened. So did I.

“Albino mokeskin,” Hermione whispered, after her gasp.

Draco didn’t acknowledge her. He walked to the counter, gently shoved the chopping board with the kale aside, dipped the mouth of the satchel, and shook it. Out came a tiny saucer, which grew in size once it saw light and air. Next came an oven mitt, with a knife curled up inside it…

Soon, the counter was filled with the stuff Draco had taken from me.

“Why, Draco?” Hermione asked, finally, staring at the pieces. Not only because Draco was carrying them all around, in his pyjamas no less, but because they looked so different. The plates had been repainted, and re-fired to lock in the new colours. The cutlery shone with a finish they hadn’t had when they’d left the kitchen. Hermione knew, because she’d seen the unburnished forks the other day on the kitchen floor. The charred fabric on the mitt had been replaced, colour and pattern matched to every stem of the flowers. The dents in the pot lids were gone. The pepper shaker sounded like a maracas when Draco stood it up, the smell of fresh peppercorns emitting from the holes.

“I told you, Granger,” the hardness in Draco had given way to a void. His face looked blank. “I don’t know.”

Hermione picked up the mitt and examined the patch. “This is perfect, Draco,” she said, after a sniffle. “I’m awful at knitting. Where did you learn to do this?”

“I tried with magic, it didn’t work.” Draco said, his expression, his voice, still impassive. I remembered the butter churn, the clover leaf fans, and the homemaking manuals. The triumph on the same face when things had worked, if just barely.

Hermione gasped. “You did this by hand.”

Draco said nothing for a long moment, while Hermione picked up every item and stared at it. She retrieved the things that were meant to be their match in the cabinet and reunited them, piece by piece. None of the pairs looked a pair anymore.

Meanwhile, life was returning slowly to Draco’s expression. He stole glances at the reunited pairs of things. I thought he would be proud. I thought he would grin, knowing that he’d made the things so much better than they had been. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the _drip, drip, drip_ of his magic became louder, gaining an echo that resonated in the quiet kitchen, in the hollow I felt opening in my veins, in my tear ducts.

“Granger,” he whispered finally. “Could you help me?”

Hermione blinked, and sighed. She put down the fork in her hand, before looking up at Draco. “Depends,” she answered lightly. It wasn’t unkind; it was honest.

“When you find out about Elaine Wright, would you mind—” Draco lifted his head and turned; his eyes and Hermione’s eyes connected.

“I’ll let you know.” Hermione replied, her face still streaked with dried tears. “For the time being, maybe he can sleep here.” She nodded at Harry, finally sunken into a deep sleep. She smiled at the sight, and I felt so proud—it was my kitchen Harry had finally fallen asleep in—and at that moment, I could feel the magic emitting from her. The safety of earth, the music of wind, the caress of water, and the warmth of fire; all were weak, but all were there, perfectly balancing each other. “He sleeps better with company he likes, when he’s like this. People company—” she pauses, giving Draco another look before turning her attention to the kitchen “and these days, I reckon, spirit company too.”

 

 


	8. Speechless - II

If you ask me, when I fell truly in love with not just Harry, or just Draco, but Harry _and_ Draco, I’d say it was these nights that I watched them sleep in the kitchen. Harry, sitting at the table, cloaked with a blanket and hugging the pillow under his head; Draco, huddled in a corner, his blanket and pillow a shadowy lump between his raised knees and chest.

I’d never seen Draco fast asleep before. Everything about him softened. Every contradiction he had was gone.

They didn’t touch, and yet, I felt they were closer this way than I’d ever seen them. I couldn’t feel their magic, as though they’d calmed, appeased one other.

I let out a puff of warm, soothing vapour, adjusted the curtain so that not a sliver of wind could slip in through the window, and fell asleep myself.

 

 


	9. The Future & The Past

Spring came late that year. I hadn’t thought much about it until one morning, Hermione broke in wearing a light silk shirt, her peacock-blue robe playing peekaboo from her purse with a bunch of yellow daffodils.

I looked outside. The ground outside was still barren. The flame I was cupping in my palm did nothing to warm the chilly air in the attic. Brad still refused to talk to me.

Meanwhile, Harry had returned to work, in better-tailored robes and crisper shirts. Drafts of speeches had filled the margins of his notebook again. Draco had left for his farm before dawn once more, his smile empty as his satchel as he’d left, but not before spotting the camera under the stack of napkins and shoving it into his pocket. The house was lifeless until Hermione and her flowers intruded.

She looked around, her eyes bright as the high noon sun and her cheeks flush. She pulled a pin from her hair, and several spells later, a faded photo was looking over the kitchen, clipped to a vine Transfigured from the curtain and framing the window. The green and lively leaves waved at the daffodils she’d placed in the vase.

In the photo, an old woman was dancing.

She was holding the tail of a long, flowery dress. A marigold bloomed in her hair, which was tied loose and white as snow. Gold teeth spotted her smile, and her face was plump, far more wrinkled than I remembered. Kneeling before her was an elderly gentleman in a matching flowery shirt, holding a maracas in each hand. He was grinning from ear to ear.

I covered my mouth with both hands. My vision blurred.

Hermione opened the window, letting out the heat of my tears. The photo flapped lightly in the breeze. _Elaine Nithercott, 1967-08-14, Los Angeles_ , said the script at the back. The barren ground was wrong, I realised. I closed my eyes and smelled grass and flowers, the signs of the life to come.

“I’ve got a copy for your … co-worker,” Hermione mumbled, her voice stiff. I wiped my eyes and looked at her. She looked uneasy. Right, I remembered. She was skeptical not about our powers, but our sentience. She was doing this, believing this all for Harry.

She left the kitchen, but I knew the moment Brad saw the photo when the wind curling against the pillars complemented the melody, the rhythm of the breeze.

I blew a kiss at Elaine and laughed, snot and all.

 

*~*~*~*

“City of Angels.” Draco said lightly, as he unclipped the photo from the vine.

He’d arrived at the cottage less than five minutes after Harry had returned from work, beating the crate of groceries that’d usually arrived before him. “Granger owled,” he’d said, “She said I should come here.”

He stared at the photo, his thumb pressing hard enough to form a crease. I would’ve done something to stop him if not for his water magic crashing against mine.

“She’s happy, isn’t she?” he asked.

Before Harry could say anything, Draco bunched the photo in his fists and buried his face in them.

His shoulders shook, and he began to cry.

 

*~*~*~*

You know what humans say, that old houses have more stories to tell than a history book? I wonder if that’s the reason house spirits are confined to one home, one room. There’s enough joy in there, and angst, to keep us occupied. Amused, too, if we’re the snarkier ones. The downside is—and maybe that’s by design too—we often don’t have the full story of what causes the joy, the angst.

Brad and I pieced together the story of Elaine’ future, and Draco’s past, from the bits of conversations we’d overheard over the next week. Well, Brad did most of the organisation work. He’d remained quiet, his hair the same strawberry blond and curled at the tips. But his shoulders had broadened, and his chest, hardened. He’d turned more solid, more dependable than before…

He’d welcomed me into his arms again. _I’m sorry_ , he’d said. I’d hushed him with my finger. I’d been so afraid I’d outgrow him, with Harry and Draco’s magic on my side. But no, he was still perfect for me. I snuggled and hummed, brushed my fingers against his hardened muscles as he shared his findings.

Elaine’s story was simple. Magical, but simple. While at the asylum, she’d met Mr Nithercott, a widower who loved music, dancing and life, in no particular order. He’d grown up Muggle and shown no signs of magic until the ripe old age of ninety. Terrified, his family had carted him to the asylum. Amused, he’d planned a grand escape, Muggle film noir style, and taken Elaine with him. They’d sailed to America, to the City of Angels…

No one had bothered to track down a pair of nonagenarians, so Mr Nithercott and his new wife would spend their remaining years dancing, laughing in Muggle clubs…

 _They would have passed away by now_ , I’d whispered, smoothing the hair on Brad’s nape. Hermione had mentioned neither MACUSA nor the Muggle government had records of their passing. I’d watched Brad’s face, his eyes.

Brad held me closer to him. _She’s wind, and she’s an angel,_ he’d whispered back. _She’s meant to fly away one day, right?_

I’d looked at him, at his smile, sad but at peace.

_Right._

Angels appeared, too, in Draco’s story, but little peace. Brad had heard most of it, uttered amidst tears, rage, and sex. Harry had taken hexes between Draco’s confession; he’d interrupted Draco, fucked him hard at Draco’s command.

It’d happened during Draco and his mother Narcissa’s house arrest. Draco hadn’t explained their crimes and Harry hadn’t asked, but with his tattoo and thieving ways and Harry’s previous mention that he could’ve gone back to Azkaban, I’d imagined his family to be like the hatted humans who’d used to run speakeasies across the ocean, who Elaine had used to love to read about, and I’d loved to read about behind her shoulder. The Ministry had assigned this horrible Auror, Hitchens, to do the Malfoys’ food purchases. Hitchens had bought nothing but edible gold leaves, which he’d claimed was the only food fit for the _Sacred Twenty-Eight_ s. He’d left the leaves in a vase in the kitchen. _Enjoy_ , he’d written on a note.

The Malfoys starved. Narcissa insisted that Draco eat her share and soon succumbed to illness. They both assumed they would die.

Then, the Manor acted.

Sometimes, Brad told me, Draco referred to the acting thing as the manor. Other times, he referred to it as the spirits. He looked confused when he talked about it, and with the confusion came the rage, the tears, the sex meant to _Obliviate_. The happiest day of his life, Draco said, wasn’t the day he got on some team, or the day he took a mark, or even the day Eltanin got its first groceries order. It was the day he found four biscuits under his blanket and a palmful of navy beans in his mother’s jewellery box.

The Malfoys wondered if Hitchens had had a change of heart, but the gold leaves kept coming. Meanwhile, the secret food, increasing in portion every day, kept appearing in places no one would look except them.

Some of the food needed cooking. So after midnight, Draco stole his way to the kitchen.

 _I can’t cook to save my life_ , Draco commented on that part of the story. I chuckled when Brad recounted that, my eyes still damp, but stopped when I learned how the kitchen spirits in the manor had helped him. It was jaw-dropping, phenomenal magic. It was magic that did all the cooking, as long as Draco supplied the food, utensils, and cookware. It was about knives that cut and diced on their own, pots and skillets that oiled themselves, flames that hopped away when Draco’s sleeves accidentally brushed against the fire. It was about spoons and spatulas that stirred, water that both washed and simmered, ovens that set the heat and time on its own…

 _It knew to rid the smell of food before Hitchens got wind of it,_ Draco said.

I wouldn’t have magic like that for another hundred years.

Draco asked his mother if the house spirits were helping them. He’d read about them as a child, from a book he’d stolen from a house elf. Nonsense, his mother said, house spirits were little better than poltergeists, untrustworthy makers of mischief who did more damage than good. The help was from the Manor itself, the magic the Malfoy ancestors had laid in its foundation, the power they’d installed in its beams and pillars. _Have faith in the Malfoy name_ , she told Draco. _The Manor will stand for another thousand years._

She didn’t live to see the Manor fall. _No food could mend a broken heart_ , Draco said, and the physical toil had only been the final blow. But as he’d walked through the ruins, as he’d let the foundation, pulverised to a powder, sift through his fingers, as he’d stared through the fallen, hollow pillars and at the blood tainting their inner walls, he’d wondered, and he’d wondered…

 _I don’t know why I want Elaine to be happy,_ he’d whispered, _I just want her to be._

_I don’t know why I’m telling you all this after seeing her photo._

_There were other things I did in the kitchen you don’t know about._

I’d thought of the moonlight, of Draco coiled up on the floor, groaning into a pillow…

Harry had waited. When it’d been clear that Draco wouldn’t elaborate any further, he’d only asked, _How did you know to get out of the Manor before it fell?_

 _The pipes,_ Draco had answered. _They were dripping, non-stop._

_The house…the spirits were mourning._

 

*~*~*~*

“It doesn’t make sense.” Hermione said again, flipping through the calendar titled _Harry Potter: Candid Shots_. Every page featured a moving photo of Harry doing something trivial: tying his shoelace; ordering a takeaway; looking at something; looking at something else. On one, I swear, he was throwing away a piece of rubbish. The calendar was a free gift with Eltanin Harvests’ latest delivery, and Draco had retrieved it from the carton with loving mischief in his eyes. “Got to pin this up,” he’d said, and he’d pinned it on the wall, at where the Queen and the Minister had used to shake hands.

Harry had the dates of his speeches circled, all the way till the end of June. Every time he’d marked the date, he’d rolled his eyes at himself. Candid Harry had scowled back at him.

Candid Harry was really good at scowling. I imitated him, checked my look on the surface of the tap.

A long way to go, still.

On June fifth, Draco had written “My Birthday” again, and spelled glitter all over the square. I’d sneezed, trying to watch from too close, and splattered the sparkles everywhere. Draco had lifted a _Seriously?_ brow at me, and told me to leave it alone.

Right now, Hermione was staring at Harry’s hair. Candid Harry’s hair. Draco had given each a new style too, or no style. May Harry was bald, and his lightning scar grew into an umbrella behind what had been Harry’s hairline. It looked utterly ridiculous.

“I think Malfoy defacing Harry makes loads of sense,” says Ron, who’d taken the kale chopping duties from Hermione. _Better you than me_ , he’d said to Harry, about who’d consume the kale Hermione had insisted on buying.

Hermione shook her head. “No. I mean, Gamp’s law. What Draco said went completely against Gamp’s law. And,” she left the calendar alone, then took a sip of her tea, “I can see him liking the kitchen spirits, but what he’s done is such an odd way to repay them…”

“What’s a good way to repay them?” Ron asked, as he transferred the kale to a colander and rinsed it under the tap. His Earth magic was kind and open, soaking in the water magic happily. I twisted the tap a little more. “Make erumpent sacrifices? Didn’t Harry say he cleaned the kitchen? Repaired stuff and tried to make new ones for it?”

“Yes, I know.” Hermione sighed. “But the stealing, and—” she gestured at the calendar “—the defacing. If he’d wanted to repay the kitchen spirits, shouldn’t he be nice to Harry?”

Ron shook the colander to drain the water. He waved his wand distractedly, but the salad bowl floated steadily his way. Even the wind magic was helping him out; the wind magic that had barely cooperated with me. _Traitor._ “Harry,” he said, feigning a frown at Harry, “was Malfoy _nice_ to you last night?”

Harry almost choked on the piece of kale he’d stolen. He coughed. “Yes,” he patted his chest, stealing a glance at Hermione and trying not to smile. His magic was cozy and warm, contained by Ron’s Earth magic. “Quite nice.”

“Seriously, you two.” Hermione put down her cup. “Shouldn’t repaying be like…making the least trouble in the kitchen? If Harry is to be trusted…” Harry nodded at her with exaggeratedly wide, innocent eyes. _Yes, yes, he is to be trusted_. Hermione shook her head. _No._ Harry grinned, chewed on the nail of his thumb. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“If Harry is to be trusted,” she tried again, but was no longer able to hide her fond, exasperated smile. “Draco makes a mess here more often than not. He can’t cook, but he keeps trying. He makes things that break, and Harry has to find a way to peel them off…”

“Hermione.” Ron threw the tomato wedges in the kale and set the wooden spoon to toss as a lemon wedge rained into the bowl. The motion was fast and easy, until…it slowed, as Ron looked more and more pensive. “What if—”

Harry stopped chewing his thumb. Revelation replaced the playfulness in his eyes. “Andromeda was wrong,” he said, while Ron asked, at the same time, “Draco wasn’t trying to repay?”

They looked at each other. “You go first,” Harry said to Ron.

Hermione looked puzzled.

“Hermione,” Ron left the salad bowl alone, and sat down beside his wife. “Gamp’s law may not apply to house spirits. Creatures, we know, have their own rules. Ancient magic has its own rules.”

Hermione nodded, reluctantly, after a moment. “I can accept that, but—”

“Malfoy is alive. Whatever the Manor fed him, it had to work the same way as food, right? Unless Malfoy is lying. But if he’s lying—and I’ll never be one to vouch that Malfoy doesn’t lie—there’s no point thinking about this whole thing. So, let’s say that one, Malfoy is telling the truth, and two, the house spirits made him food.” Ron spoke easily, gently. He leaned against Hermione, took her hand and bobbed it gently against the table.

Hermione squeezed his hand, and nodded again.

“I was thinking, doesn’t that mean there’s some part of Malfoy that’s made with spirit magic? I mean, the food we eat becomes a part of us…” Ron let the sentence hang, smiling, watching Hermione, waiting for her to…

Her eyes widened. “You think Draco’s learning to be a house spirit, with what he’s been doing to the kitchen?”

“I wouldn’t say learning.” Ron made a face at _learning_. Hermione chuckled, her eyes filled with adoration, and she leaned closer to him. “More like, imitating?” Ron shrugged, and looked up at Harry. “Harry, thoughts?”

“Similar.” Harry shoved his hands into his old jeans, and paced around the kitchen. I could see this Harry at work, frowning at a difficult case, fully unaware of how drop dead gorgeous he was while he was serious, focused like that. A crowd of admirers would claw at the window of his office, trying to catch a look…

I cleared my throat, erased my face from the crowd. I hopped on the icebox to cool myself down, just in case.

“Except—” Harry continued, a beat later. “I’m not even sure Gamp’s law applies here. One of the things that stood out in what Draco told me was…the Manor collapsed because its pillars had been hollowed out. That was true. The Aurors checked. The pillars, the beams, they were all a shell after the collapse. Every single one of them. It was baffling, not only because the inside walls were painted red, but because—” he stopped for another beat, and looked at his friends “—the Manor was built entirely of stone. Stone structures don’t hollow over time. No spells can do it so cleanly, either.”

“Dark magic?”

“I asked around.” Harry frowned. “Dark spells are good for making things out of stone—turning people and things into it, for example—and they can do some sculpting. But they’re terrible at tearing it down.”

Silence. Ron spoke up first, looking half amused, half horrified. “You think Malfoy ate Transfigured stones?”

Harry shook his head. “No,” he said, stopping by the window. “Well, okay, maybe that’s another way to put it.” He looked into the sun; I’d known about him being a hero but I saw it then, the light that disregarded his good looking… _really_ good looking exterior and became part of him. “What I meant is, Draco’s carrying his broken home with him. Maybe in his body. Maybe in his magic. Maybe both. It doesn’t matter.” He turned to look at his friends. “I agree with the imitation part. The house spirit in him was probably trying to replenish that broken home, when he took things from here and carried them all with him, and—” he smiled “—making him think he couldn’t have a new home, because he was duty bound to the old one.”

“Mate, you look far too happy about this,” Ron commented. Hermione pondered beside him.

“Draco has never called his farm his home, even though he lived there until he started coming here. He…” Harry bowed his head, his smile turning brighter, sweeter as he pondered. “He really lives here now, even though he…we…haven’t thought of it that way. He really likes this place.” He looked around him. “He’s tried so hard to house spirit this kitchen, doing all the barmy things here. I think, if he has to make a choice between calling the Manor home or this cottage, this cottage will have a chance. It’s standing, for one. And,” he took a breath, “there’s another reason I’m happy, well, not upset. It’s because…” He couldn’t go on. He chewed his lip, his expression turned somber.

Hermione opened her mouth. Ron squeezed her hand, and she closed it.

“You know,” Harry continued, “Draco once had a big fight with me because I used a paper napkin, and he said, Hogwarts Potter would never have used a napkin. It’s the same thing for me.” His voice sank to a whisper, and he faced the sun again before going on. “I like this new Draco, but I’ve always wondered where the old Draco has gone. I don’t like our past, I don’t like _his_ past, but I don’t know what to do with him, or with us, without this…” he chewed his lip, searched for the right words “…this past being there, if only so we can put it aside. Draco carrying the weight of his surname is the old Draco, even if—” he took another breath, deeper, heavier “—the weight is now his broken home.”

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione shook herself free of Ron’s hand, gently, and sighed. “Are you sure you want the old Draco back?”

“I shouldn’t have a choice.” Harry walked to the table and picked up his notebook. “That’s why I don’t like giving speeches. I can only talk about the past people want to hear, which—” he flipped the pages idly “—isn’t what the past really is. I talked about Professor Snape the other day, and I…” he turned half way back to his friends again. “I really wanted to talk about his bat appeal and his dramatic lectures, his even more dramatic marking standards. How annoying he found us dunderheads pottering around in his classroom.” He smiled a little. “That was his life too. How is it celebrating his life, if we nitpick what qualified as his life? What was his favourite food? I bet it was something dark and gloomy. Black pudding, probably.” He wrinkled his nose, once. “Did he even eat?”

“He ate at the feasts,” Ron remarked, lightly, looking at his friend. “But it could be all for show.” He smiled back at Harry.

Hermione nodded, blinking her tears away. She stood, approached Harry, took the notebook from him, and held his hand. “What are you going to do, about Draco?”

Harry looked around the kitchen. The tulips Hermione had brought with her were blooming in the vase. On the counter, the salad bowls and knives and measuring cup and chopping boards were new additions too, belated housewarming gifts from Ron’s parents that Harry had finally accepted, not only for serving kale but the produce Draco had brought in every week. Stuck on the icebox, below my dangling feet at the moment, was a grocery list in Draco’s flowing script. At its bottom was a sketch of a hopping strawberry, chased by a sack of potatoes that was Ron’s addition. The potatoes carried a banner proclaiming _Chudley Cannons_ , in Ron’s rather hideous handwriting.

A smile bloomed slowly on Harry’s face. “We…” he gave the table beside him a pat, and I perked up with the spark that promised fireworks in his magic. “We’ll make sure this cottage will kick the Manor’s arse. Andromeda’s advice will get us started.”

 

*~*~*~*

“Strawberries,” Draco said, Levitating a bottle of milk from the carton. “Professor Snape liked strawberries.”

 

 


	10. The Past & The Future

Harry had popped the question on the last hours of May. No, not _that_ question—but whether Draco could help him remodel the cottage.

Brad couldn’t tell me Harry’s exact wording. _I was distracted_ , he whispered, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright with the last remnants of their dark rings from Elaine’s days gone. I had an inkling of what had happened, not that I was going to say anything. I’d looked for him earlier, to share with him the stories of the day, and found him lying on a beam, his eyes closed and his jaw locked, his hand a moving blur between his thighs. The air around him had smelled like sweat and honey.

 _They’re making…lots of love_ , he supplied finally. I asked him what he meant by that. Hadn’t Draco and Harry been going at it like bunnies all the time? I told him about their kitchen brawl, and how they’d ended up going at it like bunnies all the same, and the crashing clock that’d been the grand finale of the whole thing…

Brad’s valiant effort to not laugh fell apart when I raised my arms and shouted _I don’t know these things!_ _I was in shock!_ I blushed and started laughing too, at myself, at my ruining the mood and being just…so ridiculously clumsy and dim about these things. I collapsed against him, burying myself, my embarrassment in his chest for I didn’t know how long, until I heard his whisper. _You_. I looked up. Brad had stopped laughing and was watching me, his brown eyes soft, his lips trembling and open. _What?_ I whispered back, and he linked his fingers with mine with one hand, raised my chin with the other, and…

 

*~*~*~*

I was still a little dazed when Draco entered the kitchen late morning, a more than an obvious skip in his step. He was wearing Harry’s clothes, the crisp white shirt unbuttoned, the dark grey boxers tight against thighs that were too muscular for the rest of him. His feet were bare. A thin braid kept his loose hair from falling into his eyes.

Harry followed a beat later, wearing his old jeans and nothing else. “Breakfast first,” he told Draco, who turned to give him a kiss.

Breakfast consisted of smoothies Draco had made with the unfinished kale—he revelled in grinding up those greens with his wand—and tea that Harry had steeped to perfection. Draco was barely sitting still, his eyes darting all over the kitchen, the gears in his mind already spinning in full speed. Harry straddled his lap and licked clean the smoothie from Draco’s lips. “Far better than the salad,” Harry said.

Draco returned a smile, brilliant but distracted. Harry lifted himself up, a little disappointed, a little shaky on his feet. “All right,” he said, “let’s get started.”

They went in and out of the kitchen, sometimes for a quick bite, sometimes for the water I’d kept extra cool for them. At some point, Harry threw on an old T-shirt, and Alfred’s old slippers appeared on Draco’s feet. Alfred and Elaine’s kitchen things gathered, one by one, on the floor: the china, the pots and pans, the antiquated utensils. I sat on the ice box and out of their way. I wanted to cry again, knowing this would be the last time I’d see them…

But I said goodbye instead. I said goodbye to them, to Alfred and Elaine. The last time I’d seen Alfred, he’d been a shadow draped in white. He’d passed by the threshold, buoyed by magic and the mutterings of undertakers. _You’re imagining things_ , Brad had insisted, stiffly, when I’d told him what I’d thought I’d seen. Y _ou’re not supposed to see past the kitchen, remember? I_ , he’d patted on his chest, _I saw him. I saw him grow big, white wings and fly out of the bedroom window…_

I’d believed him. And I’d realised it was a lie, hadn’t I? That was why I’d decided to cheer Elaine up, to fill the kitchen with the smell of pot roast, the memories of Alfred and his cooking. And Elaine had reciprocated my efforts by dancing, by eating…

With the dinner plate with the AWE monogram, the same plate Draco was holding right now.

His brilliant smile had faded. He’d handled every other monogrammed china without magic and with utmost care, as he had in the nights before. Harry had mimicked everything he’d done—which items to use magic on, which to only touch by hand, how much care to use. He’d given Draco kisses as they’d passed each other, an armful of things in both their arms. But the last time, right before Harry had run out again and left Draco holding this plate, Draco had turned away.

A shadow had grown on Draco’s face, in the furrow between his brows. The sun was setting. His irises had turned a stormy grey. He’d buttoned his shirt half way and it made him look not carefree anymore, but as if he’d escaped from his home, half dressed…

Like there’d been a blaze there. Or a flood. Or his home was about to collapse—

“Draco?” Harry returned to the kitchen with a trio of green glass vases hovering in front of him, and a piece of rag in his hands.

Draco’s expression turned ice cold. He narrowed his eyes, lifted the plate with both arms, and threw it down with all his might—

It stopped, midway in its fall. It shuddered at the opposing forces of Harry’s magic versus gravity.

Versus gravity, and Draco’s magic.

The three vases in front of Harry stayed completely still. I gasped, pulled my dangling legs up on to the icebox. I hadn’t known Harry had magic like that. So quick, so powerful…

Harry glanced at the stove, at the flame that had popped on and off with my gasp. It wasn’t the same gentle glances he’d given me before. _Please don’t let this happen again,_ this one pleaded. _Not right now._ I scrambled off my vantage point, grew a water bead on my fingertip, and stabbed it where the flame had ignited. The metal hissed. My breaths were so shaky. I couldn’t let Harry down…

Meanwhile, Harry’s attention had returned to Draco and the plate between them. “Please, Draco,” he said lightly. “Please don’t do that.”

Draco gritted his teeth. “They’re dead,” he spat. “Alfred and Elaine Wright are dead. They don’t care. They won’t care.”

He brandished his wand, and the butter dish Levitated from the floor into his hands, knocking over the teacup. It chipped. A crack struck through the porcelain and ran from the rim to the base.

I shuddered, feeling the same cut inside me. A water bead fell from my fingertip. _Drip._ The nearest pillar to me buckled. I fell on my knees.

“Look at this, Potter.” Draco weighed the dish in his hand, sneering. “This is cheap. This is worth nothing. Probably carried by, I don’t know, the thrift shops of the day, where no respectable wizards would go unless they had a Squib—”

 _Drip, drip, drip_ , rained Draco’s magic.

“Draco,” Harry cut him off quietly, sternly. “We’ll Scourgify these things, shrink them and put them in a suitcase for storage, like we talked about last night.”

Draco scoffed. “Waste of time.”

Harry sighed, and the plate landed softly on the floor. He picked it up by hand, and guided the vases to land lightly on the table. “Maybe. But we’ve gone too far to go back.”

“Have we?” Draco tossed the butter dish aside and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He would have been unapproachable—looking so proud, so judgmental—if not for the storm of his magic crashing into mine. It was turbulent, dark, but unconfined, open to touch. I stretched out my arm, my shuddering arm; Harry caught the dish just in time and fell on his knees beside me. “Where have you gone too far?” Draco asked, looking down at him, at me beside him. A ripple, a shudder had invaded his words. “In my pants. Isn’t this all a ploy to get me to stay here and be your, what was it again? Come-hole?” He tilted his head, like Harry was a funny thing to look at; he tried to smirk, but his mouth twisted, blunting the blade of his words. ”Oh, wait. That’s you.”

Harry didn’t get up. He put the plate, the butter dish neatly back on to the stack of china. His jaw was square and his eyes were on fire. “You know none of this is true.”

“What?” Draco jeered. His voice was unsteady. “You don’t want me to stay?”

“I want you to stay, but it’s up to you.” Harry’s back was straight, his head held high. He looked so tall, so powerful, despite being on his knees. Tall and powerful, like lightning bolt, lightning bolt like the crack in the teacup. “It’s always been up to you, from the first night you were here.”

“Up to me,” Draco repeated. Something about Harry kneeling in front of him was pulling him back, pulling his storm back. “Potter,” he drawled, his voice hoarser than it’d been. “Do you even know who I am?”

“I know.”

“Then why. Why are you making me choose. Why are you on your knees in front of me.”

“Because you’ve put a lot of yourself in this kitchen. You’re put a lot of yourself in the these things.” Harry’s hand lingered on the china beside him, his words pumping magic into the space, into me. I struggled to stand, to be upright and tall like he was. The pillar popped and straightened. The kitchen shuddered. Draco looked at the flakes of dust fallen beside him. Harry touched and soothed the floor with his palm. He spoke again when the place, when I and time stilled again, “I don’t want them hurt.”

“So you’re playing mother hen to these dead, worthless chickens.” The storm in Draco’s words, in his magic was dying down. He looked at Harry intently, confusedly.

“If you want to call it that, sure.” Harry answered. He held Draco’s gaze.

“What do you want, Potter?”

“I want a home. I want you to help me build one.”

“Potter, you don’t know a thing about homes. You never had a home. You didn’t have it at your stupid Muggle Aunt’s and Uncle’s. Hogwarts is nobody’s home, whatever she makes its choir sing. And this place? Certainly not this place.” Draco looked around, Summoned the trio of vases and tipped them. Dried, grey petals scattered on the tiles. “These things had been dead for what? Sixty years? You don’t care for a home, Potter. Don’t lie to me. You don’t want—”

“I didn’t. I do now.”

“Stop your—”

“Draco. You’re right, I never had a home. I never wanted a home. And maybe you’re right too, that I can’t possibly want something I don’t understand. So teach me what a home is. Use this place as a classroom.”

“Do you know what you’re asking of me?” Draco’s drawl had given way to something dull, like it’d been submerged in water, like it was drowning. “You were right too, just now. We’ve gone far. I’ve gone far. I’ve gone so far that no one from my past recognises me, wants me anymore. I’m a farm boy. The Draco Malfoy in Hogwarts, who used to wear clothes like these,” he gave his shirt—Harry’s shirt—a rough tug—“now rolls in the in mud all day. He, who wouldn’t touch a house elf, is now cleaning chicken coops on his knees.” He laughed. A strained, high-pitched laugh. “Parkinson and Nott and Zabini and Goyle, they all shrunk their bags and left. I got a return owl that said wrong address; it said, the Parkinsons, they don’t know anyone in England, never mind a Malfoy. The whole fucking thing was in Russian and I had to translate it…”

“Draco…”

A crack struck through Draco’s voice, from his lips to his throat. “Your colleagues in the Ministry, they used to call me future Minister Malfoy when I went there with my father for tea. I'd end up in a state banquet, yes, but to deliver groceries and shove turnips up some arseholes. You said you loved it, you said others loved it, but do you know who didn’t love it? I didn’t.” He closed his eyes. “Not because I don’t want to turn good. I don’t regret that. I’ll never regret that. But…” The three vases before him landed quietly on the floor, on the bed of dead petals.

“I was meant to be a great wizard, Harry.” I’d never heard him call Harry by name, until now. “The Malfoys have always been great wizards. Disagree with their politics all you want, but this, no one can deny. This tradition stops with me. I can’t even keep my home upright. The House of Malfoys…”

He fell on his knees beside Harry and covered his face. “That was all I had left of them. Don’t you understand? That was all I had left…I was supposed to look after the Manor. I was supposed to make sure it stands for another thousand years, and the world knows about it, knows about my surname and my blood and…”

Harry moved on his knees and reached for Draco, tentatively putting a hand on Draco’s thigh. He was knocked back onto the floor when Draco moved to his touch, circled his arms around Harry’s neck and embraced him tightly. Harry’s head hit the gravy bowl. It bobbled but stayed upright, making another light chime as it found its footing.

“Here I am, falling in love with a shabby cottage in the middle of nowhere. Wanting to do everything to make it my home,” Draco whispered into Harry’s shoulder. Harry hesitated, then wrapped his arms around Draco and patted his back, which began to heave. “I can’t even allow magic to handle these plates from people I don’t know, when I left my parents’, my grandparents’, my great-grandparents’ all in the rubbles. I didn’t take anything. I didn’t try to fix anything. Those plates were made of silver, Harry. The letters, the monograms were woven in gold. Each was probably worth—” Draco reappeared from Harry’s embrace, his tear-streaked face turned towards the kitchen “—three of this place of yours.”

He sniffed, while he snuggled tighter against Harry’s chest. “Three of this very stupid, very _Harry_ place of yours.”

He looked tiny, even smaller than Harry had looked when he’d given Harry the draught and left Harry brokenhearted. Harry brushed his blond fringe aside, kissed him on the forehead, and rocked the two of them together. Just like Brad and I, I thought, outgrowing each other at different times, but always finding the right fit in each other’s arms. I smiled, forgetting that one of them had just called me very stupid. I smiled at the impossibility, the perfection that was them.

“I’ve fallen in love with this stupid place too, and wanted to make it home,” Harry whispered back into Draco’s hair, his lips curved in a gentle smile. The embers of his magic were chasing away the residual darkness in Draco’s, the last dark cloud of his storm. “Since you’d fallen in love with it and wanted to make it home, too.”

 

*~*~*~*

The cottage wasn’t half as lovable for a home in June’s sweltering heat, I decided. I knelt on the floor, huffing and puffing, trying to the blow the chill from the icebox into the kitchen.

Brad had taught me a trick or two about handling winds. _Listen_ , he’d said, _the winds are all about going with the flow._

Not working. I massaged the sore muscles of my face. My jaw had been overworked, and huffing and puffing wasn’t the only reason…

I blushed, liquid heat building once again between my thighs. _Oh no, not now_ , I chanted to myself. Brad was on duty. He was always on duty, of course, but Draco and Harry were upstairs, which meant, he was really on duty, and…

He was probably having his own liquid heat, too. We’d gone on…mouth action, I on him, he on me. But the way, the frequency Harry and Draco had infused their want of each other into the cottage, into us…

I huffed and puffed again, harder. No one had ever said that house spirits were receptive to that too, along with the magic. Hermione was right. Those ancient families didn’t write down anything.

The things they did write down…Draco was probably practising them all on Harry at the moment. My face heated up further at the thought, of Harry moaning, arching against the bed…as my feet treacherously led me to the pipes that connected to the upstairs ones above.

I crouched, put my ears against the metal. That thing was cool, at least, and I hummed, as my eyes found Draco’s birthday present on the kitchen table. No, it wasn’t a present from Harry, but a present from himself. It was the albino moleskin satchel, and inside were the things Alfred and Elaine had left behind. Inside, too, was the lip balm in silver case. The satchel was his mother’s, Draco had said, and it was meant to hold secrets.

 _It survived several raids._ _Sometimes, Father couldn’t get to Borgin and Burkes soon enough_. Draco hadn’t looked at Harry while he’d said that, wrapping and unwrapping the string of the satchel around his finger. _I’ve thought about it, Harry. I don’t think I have use for a satchel like this anymore_.

 _Where do you want to put it?_ Harry had asked.

Draco had shaken his head. _I don’t know_ , he’d replied. _Can be anywhere. The satchel is sealed._ He’d looked at Harry finally, caressing the satchel one last time before letting it go. _Is it silly if I say happy birthday to myself?_

Harry had leaned on his crossed arms on the table, smiled and shaken his head. He’d then asked, without preamble, without hesitation. _Draco,_ _will you move in with me?_

Hence, the ongoing activities upstairs.

A shiver ran down the pipe against my ear. I closed my eyes, imagined the shout on crumpled sheets, the hands that crumpled those sheets. A drop of cool condensate beaded from the metal, slipped down from my ear, to my neck and down to my breasts, and I rubbed it into my skin, on my nipples…

Until I felt my own shudders running through me.

 

*~*~*~*

For his move-in date, Draco had chosen the last day of June—also the date of Harry’s last speech for the season. Harry had nodded, said nothing, and laid a kiss on Draco’s lips.

Draco had been staying for breakfast, watching Harry practice his speeches from his audience seat on the floor, often in little more than his own skin.

Harry had found him in the kitchen one night, biting the corner of his pillow and his hips in a wild thrust. He’d said nothing to Draco about it too—even though his magic was burning with questions—and he’d brought down his own pillow and lain beside Draco, until Draco’s guilt had given way to slumber.

And I’d fallen asleep beside them, spent as Draco had been, spent because Draco had been. I’d tried to ignore the damp spot I’d left on the floor, the want I’d had to be intimate with the place I called home.

The want I’d had to _make love_ to my home, to ground myself to it.

I’d wondered if that was how Draco had felt too. Draco, part house spirit, like me.

He always woke first, when the night was still at its darkest. Sometimes, he’d mark things in the notebook, on the latest draft of Harry’s speech. He’d cross out things, put in something else, frown and ponder. And Harry would read his comments in silence come sunrise, while Draco would pretend to busy himself with the dairy and fruits, stealing looks at Harry every now and then. Harry would chew on his quill, scribble down his own words. And he’d smile, when Draco set two fresh glasses of sweet concoctions on the table, and practise his speech again.

_A very close friend told me this—Professor Dumbledore once taught him the nature of mercy. How it’s better to receive than to give._

_I wonder if Professor Dumbledore would approve if I say this too: that the best mercy we can receive is, sometimes, a mercy we can give to ourselves._

_That the best mercy can be the peace in our hearts, our homes, our past and…_

*~*~*~*

More than a year ago, Harry had surprised and worried us, when all he’d carried with him for a move-in was a rucksack.

Draco was moving in empty handed.

Everything he took with him, Brad would tell me later, fit inside his pockets. Two more of the same jeans and Eltanin T-shirts, four pairs of socks. The nightshirt he’d worn on the night he’d broken in. A toothbrush, a clump of hair ties. Oh, and Alfred’s camera. He’d hid it in his blue anorak, along with a pot of baby cactus.

( _Baby cactus?_ I’d ask. _Yes. Baby cactus._ )

But Draco didn’t come alone.

Harry stared, open-mouthed, as a flock of fowls followed Draco into the kitchen. The rooster made his entrance first, strutting and proud. The hen followed, surrounded by chicks that tweeted and hopped about excitedly. One of them strayed to the oven and pecked on the door.

“Hi,” I greeted it, feeling its soft, fluffy coat.

Draco, meanwhile, waited at the threshold, brushing an imaginary lock of hair off his forehead. He shuffled, looking strangely uneasy, until the last two fowls made their entrance into the kitchen. They were far bigger than chickens, white, or used to be. Both had lost its crest. One had half of its plumage missing, and the other…

It’d sensed strangers in the room and fanned its tail. The feathers were sparse, straw-like with much of their barbs gone. But the most unsettling sight was the eyes on them—pitch black, not a glint of iridescence left, like they’d been blinded.

Harry had gone on one knee and reached out a hand. “I didn’t know they’re with you,” he said, smiling.

Draco shifted on his feet. He shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled them out again. _Drip, drip, drip_ , whispered his magic, before his mouth made words as low and wistful. “They followed me out of the ruins,” he said. “I didn’t notice them until I Apparated and thought I saw something behind me. I… _”_ He lowered his head, crossed his ankles and stared at his filthy trainers. “I couldn’t leave them behind.”

The one with missing plumage approached Harry slowly. “May I touch?” Harry asked.

“Yes, they’re friendly. They just…can’t handle magic. The sight and sound of it.”

Harry watched Draco, who didn’t return his gaze. He nodded, regardless, and ran his palm along the near naked, ugly side of the bird. “Do they have names?”

“Chicken.”

“I mean the peacocks.”

“Their names are Chicken.” Harry looked up. Draco met his gaze this time. “The peacocks’ names are Mr and Mrs Chicken,” he spoke louder, with conviction, though his voice remained strained. “I thought…they could get used to being regular birds.” He turned away again. “That’s the kind of life I can offer them now.”

The peahen gave Harry’s hand a tentative tap with her beak. The peacock was approaching Harry too, slowly, cautiously, its brown eyes bright and watchful. They didn’t behave like peacocks at all; even the real chickens were acting prouder. The rooster stood by the table, its chin raised and wattles puffed out. The hen reined in her children with her wings.

These peacocks, they acted like small, frightened animals.

“So,” Harry responded, slowly too and cautiously. “When you said you slept with the chickens at night…”

“Yes, I meant them.” Draco nodded. “But also the real chickens. I got them to keep Mr and Mrs Chicken company, but…” he turned to the family at the centre of the kitchen. The sight of them made him straighten. It made him tall, and it made him soft. “These chickens have standards, apparently,” he said, a resigned smile teasing his lips. “They wouldn’t even look at the peacocks until I made them share a coop at night. And now, of course,” he sighed a mock sigh, joined the family and went on his knees. The chickens gave a loud, happy tweet and hopped all over him. “It’s too late to get rid of them. I want to leave them at the farm, but—”

“No,” Harry said, opening his palm as the peacock test leaned its head against him. “They’re staying here. You’re all staying here.”

 

*~*~*~*

The remodelling of the cottage would go in full swing after that. Draco would have a few more episodes of doubt and outrage, wondering, questioning if this cottage could ever be his home. With July came a month’s worth of rain and thunderstorms, and he’d stand in the kitchen in the middle of the night once more, fretting over what to do with the cabinets.

He’d cast golden leaves and vines on them, his wand flowing with the stems, twirling to the curl of the leaves. They’d look ornate and beautiful, but wouldn’t suit the old white wood that made the panels, or the plain Muggle counters resting between them. He’d notice that and he’d try to change those too, with homemaker’s spells as shaky as those he’d demonstrated before. The cabinet doors would soon be dangling on the hinges for Harry to fix in the morning.

Harry would ask if Draco had something in mind that he could help create. On good days, Draco would merely shake his head. On bad days, he’d lash out.

Harry not knowing a thing about homes, or families, would be his favourite insult.

I would find out Harry was an orphan, and I’d douse Draco with water from the waste drain. He’d turn to me, cabbage ends in his loose, dripping hair, eyes narrowed and his lips so thin they’d almost be invisible.

 _You’re siding with him_ , he’d say. _You’re just like everyone else._

It’d take time for me to understand what he meant, to see the battle lines within him, the outside wars Harry always seemed to be part of. Harry would be taking notes in the notebook again, would come home with fresh injuries and stale blood on his boots. His quick knives would return along with the dittany. _Please go to St Mungo’s for the sake of this place_ , Draco would say. He’d never ask why, or how Harry had got hurt. _If you want to see this gash on the front page tomorrow_ , Harry would reply, smiling and grimacing at the same time, _with full analysis from five experts on how it’s likely from the whip of a dom._

Draco would glance at the silver badge on Harry’s lapel, bite his lip, and say no more.

That night, he would scrub the floor the Muggle way again, for safety. He’d wipe away the spots of blood on Harry’s boots, bring his fingers to his nose for a sniff as if he could smell a surname from the blood.

Once, he swiped his finger onto the Ministry badge Harry had left on the table. The silver ate up the blood and shone more brilliantly. Draco threw it in the sink and scrubbed it with a scouring pad.

Whatever I’d been angry with him for, I couldn’t stay angry with him after those nights. I’d long for the battles inside him, the battles outside the cottage to be over. I’d think of ways to end these battles, even though I’d only have a chance with the ones within. I’d play with the flakes of gold piling up on the counter from Draco’s inner war, beside the vase that’d carry wild roses from the Burrow.

Fire magic to soften it. Water magic to pull it into a yarn. Wind and earth magic to spool it, weave it in place with the wooden fibre in the cabinets.

I’d sweat and collapse in exhaustion. The wind and earth magic would be too new, too much for me. I’d look at the thin stripe of wood I’d have finished so far, wipe away my tears of frustration. _No one will ever notice_ , I’d think.

And I’d be so wrong. I’d see Draco staring, open mouthed, at the wood shimmering in the first ray of the morning sun. I’d see Harry minutes later, grinning at my handiwork, the neckline of his T-shirt contorted by Draco’s manhandling him downstairs. I’d see Ron and Hermione every day in the coming weekends, Hermione figuring out the magic, and they—Harry, Draco, Hermione, and Ron— replicating it on the cabinets, the counter, the chairs and table, even the floor. The kitchen would sizzle with the steam of their magic, would smell of grass from the air blowing in from the window. It’d be smeared with clay that they’d use to secure everything in place…

I’d poke at the clay, watch it yield to my fingers. I’d recall the fairy tale about how a potter witch had moulded the first house spirit from this, because she’d rather fancied a Quidditch player and wanted to stalk him. She’d fired her handiwork into shape, blown a phoenix feather into its nostrils…

…and the house spirits had made their first contribution to this world with a big, wet sneeze.

And finally, I’d see lovemaking. The remodelling would finish several weeks later, with the whole cottage modelled after the style of the kitchen. The bedroom would be painted light grey, Brad would tell me, the ceiling sprinkled with gold dust so fine it’d look like the most distant stars. _I seriously don’t see a need for gold in your chicken coop_ , Ron would say to Mr Chicken, while the latter would sit majestically beside him, presiding over the blending of kale into peacock feed. _But you’re finishing the kale, so you deserve it, I guess._

Harry would make celebratory treacle tarts. _Recipe from a friend_ , he’d say, leaving a streak of white on his cheek as he’d wipe off his sweat with his floured hands. The August heat would be worse than June’s, leaving him in only his jeans and his apron. His hair would be a wild mess from the humidity, and from neglect, too—it wouldn’t have been cut for weeks. “I was thinking,” he’d say _,_ glancing at Draco, kneading the dough in front of him, “maybe we should try to see if it’s any good _.”_

The kitchen would be ready. The stove fire would be hugging the pot with its blue petals; the oven, too, would be lit and warmed. All of my efforts would fly over Draco’s head though. His eyes would have long glazed over, as he’d watch Harry while seated on the counter beside the pastry board. His shirt would be unbuttoned, as it’d been on the day they’d started the remodelling, and his boxers would be tight.

Really tight.

He’d be fixated on Harry’s hands. Harry’s rough, calloused hands, the right of which had a scar of something I’d never been able to read. Those hands would be giving the dough a massage, drizzling water on it every now and then; they’d be stirring in the golden syrup and breadcrumbs, on the stove controlled to—Harry would squint at the nearly illegible writing— _high heat alternated with stasis charm_. Sugars would caramelise in the high heat more readily, a note at the bottom would explain, and the stasis charm would prevent burning…

 _Harry_ , Draco would call, as soon as the oven door would close. Harry would turn, just in time to see Draco remove his clothes and take over the place where the dough had been, his face flushed red, his loose, blond hair fine like the gold threads on the cabinets behind him.

 _Come here_ , Draco would say, and Harry would comply, find himself in the V between Draco’s thighs. He’d shut his eyes when Draco’s fingers would dab into the pot and transfer sugar on his lips; he’d keep them shut when Draco’s hands would rub on the pastry board and cup his face, leaving two perfect, indelible palm prints there while he’d kiss Harry, sweetly and deeply, while he’d lick the sugar away.

 _How does it taste so far?_ Harry would ask, smiling into the kiss.

 _Don’t know yet_. Draco’s eyelids would shutter close. _But I’ve never had fresher ingredients in my life._ He’d taste Harry again. _Mmm…_  he’d said, and Harry would taste him back, his tongue dipping into Draco’s mouth. _No food talk._

 _What do you want to talk about?_ Harry would ask. _Or would you prefer to not talk at all?_

Draco would open his eyes. He’d circle his arms around Harry’s neck, and their foreheads would touch. Harry would watch Draco between the curtain of his blond fringe, in the makeshift alcove made for just the two of them. He’d watch Draco’s expression turn grave, though a hint of smile would never leave those soft, pink lips.

 _Harry_ , Draco would say, _I have a grievance to file_.

_About what?_

_About you._ One of Draco’s hands would slip from Harry’s neck to Harry’s face and down, down his chest and close around Harry’s hand. It would lead Harry’s hand to rest on his cock, pink and leaking, and Harry would give it a squeeze, his eyes soft with love and bright with want. _You_ , Draco would say, still looking serious, his hips canting into Harry’s touch as his breath would catch. _You almost let me go_.

 _What do you mean?_ Harry’s smile would fade a little. He would frown a little.

 _You made me choose. You invited me here, you offered me a way here, but you also offered me a way to leave._ Draco would trace the furrow between Harry’s brows, smoothing it. _You didn’t come to the farm to find me, just because I asked you not to. You never came down to the kitchen and persuaded me to stay, even after I stopped giving you the Draught. Your arms are open, but you let me come to you. You made me come to you. Even this place; you asked me to help you build a home, but, don’t think I haven’t noticed—you’ve never told me what you want. This place—_ he would turn to look at the kitchen, his contact with Harry at their foreheads unbroken _—is about what I want. But I don’t have to choose what I’ve chosen, Harry. I don’t have to choose here. I don’t have to choose you._

 _I know,_ Harry would say. _But it’s much sweeter if you do. Choose here. Choose me._

 _I was terrified_ , Draco would confess. Harry would raise his hands and run them, in long, soothing swipes, along Draco’s thighs, as Draco’s lips would tremble. _I was terrified I wouldn’t choose here, I wouldn’t choose you. You asked, why I followed you home. It’s because I wanted you to choose for me. I wanted you to make me who I would be, make me give up the last part of who I was. I was so close, you know? I was so close to a brand new start. I thought you would choose for me. The old Harry Potter, the one who used sleeves for napkins, would have chosen for me. He would have locked me here, grounded me to this kitchen, if he’d known what I was fighting against. He would have made me…vomit the Manor, if he could_.

 _Do you miss him?_ Harry would ask, laying a kiss on the trembling lips.

 _I don’t know_. Draco would shake his head. _Because_ this _Harry_ _…_ His eyes would sweep across Harry’s face as he’d emphasise on “this”, and his thigh would spread further such that Harry could stand flush against him, his cock nested between them; a wordless spell later, and Harry would be as naked as he was. _Because this git—_ he would reach between his bodies, holding both cocks in his hand _—he may be a giant ball of mess with his napkins and celebrity clothes and celebrity hair, but he’s mine_.

Harry’s breath would hitch. His hand would wrap around Draco’s, the one on their cocks, and he’d start pulling. _Then what’s the grievance, exactly?_

Draco’s mouth would have turned pinker, poutier. The pupil in his eyes would be blown, and his breaths would be fast, fanning the flames in the oven that I’d struggle to keep steady. _The grievance is, he hasn’t locked me here, grounded me here to this kitchen. That was what I signed up for, remember? I’ve fantasised about that. I didn’t get what I wanted with the choice thing, but this consolation prize…I was watching his hands just now… I’ve been watching his hands and—_ he’d bow his head, his eyes flickering upward to look at Harry, and he’d chew his lips — _I still want that._

Harry would lose his capacity to speak. His hand would stop. He would need to exhale, deeply and shakily, before he’d recover his voice. _Then show me, Draco. Show me how you want it._

A corner of Draco’s mouth would lift, a half smile, half smirk. He would push Harry away, gently, and hop off the counter. His thighs, his buttocks would be white with flour, and he’d make a trail of it as he’d stride to the centre of the kitchen floor and lie down on the tiles, like he’d done so many nights before. He’d raise his knees and let his one leg fall to one side. _Come here,_ he’d say to Harry, the second time this evening. _On top of me._

Harry would do as told again, until their body would be flush once more, Harry sandwiching Draco with the floor. _Don’t let me go_ , Draco would whisper, before craning his neck and biting into Harry’s lips. Harry would follow the bite with his mouth, and soon, it’d be peppering kisses all over Draco’s face, all over his neck and shoulder and chest. His own skin, his hair would be white with flour too, as he’d reach behind to coil his arm around Draco’s nape and its smooth blond hair. He’d push against Draco, pin him in place so his cock could rub, hard. _Burns._  Draco would gasp, and Harry would Summon the leftover butter and shove it between their bodies, let their body heat do the melting, the spreading of the grease on the two cocks, the tips of which would peer between their bodies, one dark pink, one purplish red and both leaky—

 _I’m close_ , Harry would be the first to confess. The frotting would have turned erratic by then; more and more, Harry’s hips would cant rather than grind, and his strong buttocks would rise and fall in a mock thrust. The soft squishes of skin against skin would give way to slaps, as Harry’s cock would collide against the skin behind Draco’s balls. _Tell me, tell me how you want to finish—_

Draco would wrap a leg around Harry, reining in his thrusts. _Keep rubbing_ , he’d say, between his moans and senseless cries. His neck, his chest would be pink with heat and exertion, and his hair would be slicked back, almost, by Harry’s oily hands, showing off his widow’s peak sharp and deep and perfect. _We’ll come like this, Harry. Just keep rubbing. Just…just don’t let me go._

Harry would ground one knee onto the kitchen floor to seek purchase, as he’d make sure their two cocks would drag against each other at his every movement. He’d seek permission to enter Draco, and Draco would grant it, his hands temporarily down at his buttocks to spread it wide. And Harry would have Draco locked in place then, his one hand in the depths of Draco, and he’d find and claim that something inside that’d make Draco shout:

_Now, Harry. Now._

 

*~*~*~*

If you wondered where I’d been while Draco and Harry had made love, the answer was there, and not quite there.

Brad had come to me. He’d knocked on the pipes on his side, the melodic chime matching the highs and lows of Harry’s kisses, the rhythm of Harry and Draco’s body sliding against each other.

And I’d responded, when the molten butter had spread on the floor. We’d met at the intersection between the bedroom and the kitchen, the golden evening light for backdrop, Brad’s strawberry blond hair glowing like fire in the sun.

 _I’m ready,_ he’d whispered, standing tall and vulnerable like the length between his thighs, _if you are._

_I am._

We’d joined together. Brad had begun to move when Harry had confessed he was close; _You_ , he’d chanted. And when Harry and Draco had climaxed, when Draco had shouted _Now Harry, now_ , I’d, too, seen bursts of colours before my eyes. I’d seen the living room, with its overstuffed armchair and fireplace, the receipts for Eltanin Harvests scattered on the floor. I’d seen the study with its shabby desk, piled high with folders shining with the Ministry badge. I’d seen the loo, small and white, the only dash of colours provided by the toothbrushes in the cup. I’d seen the bedroom, pillows haphazardly stacked on soft sheets and softer blankets, curtains swaying, caressing the pot of baby cactus on the sill…

I’d seen a home. I’d wondered if Draco had seen it too, if the house spirit in him had seen it, when he’d Summoned Alfred’s camera while still lying on the kitchen floor, with Harry wrapped in his arms; when he’d Levitated the camera to hover a few feet away from their faces, and snapped a picture.

I’d never seen a more beautiful smirk before. I’d never seen a coyer blush before.

I’d never felt so grounded, and so in love before.

 

 


	11. Autumn Again

Autumn came. Night fell fast; temperatures plummeted. Brad and I huddled on a beam, reminiscing about the warmth and light of the summer, its ravaging storms and humidity all forgiven.

The four seasons are elemental too. Summer is fire. I shivered.

A tiny, unsteady flame blossomed on Brad’s palm. He smiled at it, proudly, his cheeks turned even pinker. His cheeks were a permanent apple-ly pink these days. He’d found them embarrassing and blamed them on the nightly acrobatics in the bedroom. I adored them though; they complimented his strawberry-blond hair perfectly. I cupped his palm from below, and when the flame jumped, when it steadied and surged and danced to my fire magic, I kissed him right there, where his cheeks looked the pinkest. _Show off,_ he muttered, and I grinned at him, rubbing my palms, trying to blow warm air into them.

Ah, I shouldn’t have made fun of him. My warm puff of air was all steam—too much water, too little wind. He laughed, wrapped his arm around my shoulder again as I winced at my dripping hand. “We need a housewarming party,” I said.

The good thing about having too much water magic on a cold night was…

Brad sat on the beam and watched me search for the right pipe to freeze, grinning.

Soon enough, Draco was grumbling in the kitchen, at the ice pillar coming out of the tap. “We need a housewarming party,” he said.

So we had a housewarming party on the Equinox. Draco thought of decorating the kitchen with photos and found a potion recipe for developing the film in Alfred’s camera. “Cast the Peruvian Darkness powder for me,” he said to Harry.

Harry nodded and gave Draco his own wand, its tip lit with the most beautiful, most scarlet _Lumos_. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said. “But use this to find me.”

Draco held on to them, the wand and its light, as images appeared in the revealing potion, as Elaine came to life again. The scroll of parchment was soon a gallery of her smiles, some fleeting, others bright, all of them just for Alfred; she’d shown off a new dress with a twirl, demonstrated dance moves and stomped her feet playfully when Alfred couldn’t catch up. Alfred appeared in one photo, adjusting his glasses stiffly, too embarrassed to be the centre of attention. I could almost hear Elaine’s breezy laugh in the background…

As the scroll moved on, the images turned black and white. Those were from Harry trying to open the camera.

Life and its palette returned afterwards, in blushes and afterglow. There was Draco, lying on the kitchen floor, his proud smile blossoming. Beside him was Harry, giving the camera a coquettish glance, like he’d much rather disappear in Draco’s arms than face the world…

 _We’re not putting this up_ , Harry said.

He was the one to put this up, beside the photo of Elaine and her new dress. Ron choked on his tea when he saw it. Hermione’s face turned red. Andromeda moved away like there was nothing to see there, the clicks of her pumps drawing attention away from her knowing smile. Molly—that would be Ron’s mum—turned her back against it, trying to hide it from…

Teddy. It was the first time I saw the little boy. He was a tiny thing, thin but for his chubby cheeks. His hair was an uneventful brown when he’d crossed the kitchen threshold, but a streak of argon blue appeared when he saw Harry, and the blue spread everywhere when the animals filed in. While the adults chatted elsewhere, he played with the chickens and the Chickens and told them stories. He loved wolves, I could tell; at one point, he giggled and wolf ears grew on his head…

Feeling playful too, I started a small oven fire for him when he gestured a bonfire for his story. He stared at me, wide-eyed, then ran to the oven door and pressed his tiny palms on it, gaping. I coloured the fireballs blue and gold…

I forgot Mr Chicken was behind him.

The peacock let out a wretched cry, stumbled backwards, and crashed against a wall. The hen, who’d been lecturing the chickens at a corner, jumped in front of him and spread her wings, squawking at me angrily. Draco came rushing in.

He fell on his knees before Mr Chicken. Mr Chicken kept crying. The hen hopped aside and clucked, her wings pointing at me every now and then.

The fireballs in the oven had turned into ashes. I’d dropped them, dropped on my knees too. I felt so ashamed.

_I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have._

Draco scooped Mr Chicken up and put him on his knees. The peacock stopped crying, buried his head in Draco’s shirt as Draco petted him, smoothed his sparse, blinded feathers. _It’s all right_ , Draco kept whispering, _they’re not here. It’s just me, my friends and family. She—_ he nodded at the oven, at me _—is a friend too_. _Remember the flutterby bushes we played hide-and-seek with? She’s just like them._

The peacock whined, his soft, brown eyes looking up at Draco. Draco feigned a smile, too sad to be real. He hugged the peacock tighter and said again, _It’s okay._

Little Teddy, of course, missed the weight of the scene: the peacock’s fear, Draco’s sadness, my guilt. He waddled to Draco’s side, smiled wide, and threw his arms around Draco and the bird. _Hugs!!_ he cooed.

In came Harry to the rescue. No, he didn’t add himself to the hugging pile, but scooped Teddy up and suggested that, maybe, Mr and Mrs Chicken can be formally introduced to the kitchen spirit? We’re all living under a roof, after all.

 _How?_ Draco asked, Mr Chicken still wrapped protectively in his arms.

Harry thought for a moment. He gestured them all to come closer to the oven, to me. He knelt in front of the oven door himself, and patted his thighs for Teddy to crawl on his lap.

 _Um_ … _Kate,_ Harry called. My breath hitched, and I covered my mouth with my hands. I’d never had a name before. House spirits had never had names before. Harry had given me a name, and I loved it. Kate. Kate was me. _This little boy here is Teddy Lupin_ , Harry continued _. He’s my godson, Draco’s cousin. Teddy, why don’t you give Kate a wave?_ He demonstrated a wave himself, at the dark space behind the screen.

Teddy, after a wide-eyed look at Harry, followed.

 _Kate,_ Harry called again, softly. _Would you mind giving Teddy a wave too? Remember the gold flame you showed me the first time we met? That one’s my favourite._

Trembling, I hovered above the pilot light and raised my hand. My memories rose with it, too, how messy I’d been on that day, how smitten I’d been. I watched my beautiful Harry across the oven screen, smiling tentatively, hopefully at me, and my heart skipped in my chest. Some things hadn’t changed. A flame jumped to life, in pure gold. I closed my eyes, focused on one thing that did change—my wind magic—to give the flame a wave.

Mr Chicken chanced a furtive glance at me. Mrs Chicken emerged from under the table, invited by Harry’s outstretched hand to join us.

 _Kate._ Draco took a breath, his gaze now intent on me. _Would you mind saying hello to our peacocks? They grew up with me. They…their given names are—_ he paused, inhaled again, stole a look at Harry before he continued — _Narcissus and Lucia_.

The names brought on a transformation. A slow, but incredible transformation. Mr Chicken’s chin tilted, rustily, while Mrs Chicken’s pacing steadied, awkwardly, into a strut. Right in front of our eyes, Mr and Mrs Chicken transformed into proud creatures, into Narcissus and Lucia Malfoy, while their missing crests and burnt feathers, into battle scars. Harry was struck by those names too; he turned and stared at Draco. _Did they…?_ he asked. Draco gave him a curt nod. _They named them. These peafowls, they were like their firstborns._ One side of his mouth lifted. _I was only the third baby in the family._

I pondered for a moment and created two flames just for the peacocks: blue and soft, one on the right and one on the left. I closed my eyes, focused my wind magic on them so they stretched as tall as they could, before the winds turned and bent the flames in the middle. _Pleased to meet you._ The peacocks studied the flames, the bow, before they angled their neck towards the oven—towards me—once, down and up. As if they were giving me a curt nod, the same curt nod Draco had just given Harry.

Harry and Draco hadn’t followed our exchange though. For, when my attention returned to them, their lips had been locked in a sweet, sweet kiss. Harry was the giver, his neck craned, Teddy still on his lap and his eyes covered with his own tiny hands. Draco was the recipient, still on his knees with Mr Chicken in his arms, and his eyes closed.

I dimmed the fires, but the kitchen remained this warm, this sweet, for hours to come.

 

*~*~*~*

Things turned heavier after sunset, but just a smidge. A big man, the size of Harry and Draco combined, huffed and puffed his way into the kitchen. Under his arm was a bright yellow pastry box, and he wiped off fat beads of sweat from his forehead.

Draco dropped his wooden spoon when he saw the man. ( _Why are we making elderberry ice cream late September?_ he’d asked. _You’ll see_ , Harry had answered.) His lips thinned.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I…” the big man stuttered. “I needed to close shop first.” I’d learn his name was George, even though Draco and Harry would still call him by his old name, Greg.

To that answer, Draco’s expression softened, just a little. “My question ended with ‘here’, not ‘late’.”

George’s face turned even redder. He turned to Harry for help.

“He’ll have to answer to me too, but later,” Draco drawled. “You first.”

“I…I didn’t want to be here,” George replied. It took obvious effort for him to talk, but with that effort, a light tingle of magic danced on my skin…

Wind magic. I gaped at the man, at his booted feet, his T-shirt stuck on his back. I thought of Elaine, her breezy voice, her flowing dress…

“Then leave,” Draco spat.

Harry wanted to say something but caught himself. He covered his mouth with one hand and turned around. Draco pretended to have missed that. His face softened even more.

George saw it too. “May…may I put down the b…box first?” he asked.

Draco gave him a nod. The peacock’s nod.

“Harry said you like…liked my treacle tarts. He doesn’t have t…time to bake today.”

Draco’s eyes flickered towards the box. “I never had your treacle tarts.”

George looked hurt. Genuinely hurt. The corners of his eyes drooped an inch on his face. He chewed his lips.

That look thawed the last block of ice on Draco’s face. “Sit down,” he said with a sigh. He waved his wand, and a perfect arch of _Aguamenti_ filled a water glass. My eyes widened, and I stared at the big man again. Old family wizards were averse to making drinking water for strangers because, as legends went, the drinker could sense the caster’s magic and use it to his own advantage.

Draco couldn’t have not known that.

My jaw dropped when George, looking resolutely Muggle in his yellow T-shirt and black Muggle jeans, seemed to know it as well. His hands trembled as they cuddled the glass of water between them and raised it evenly to his lips. He took a small, careful sip and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, before he put down the glass as evenly, as respectfully again. “Thank…thank you,” he whispered.

“Look at you,” Draco muttered, and heaved another sigh. He _Accio_ ’ed a stack of napkins from the table and handed it to the big man, gesturing at his sweat-laden face. “You can drink the rest.” He nodded at the glass.

The man did. He guzzled the rest of the water, and two more glasses after that, each filled by Draco’s _Aguamenti_. The napkins turned into a soggy ball in his fist.

He told his story then, slowly and painfully, as most stories pertaining to Draco had been told. Dinner hour came and went. At some point, Harry _Accio’ed_ the hors d’oeuvres out of the kitchen for their hungry friends and family elsewhere in the house. You see, Greg...George grew up with Draco too; he’d given up his wizarding identity, and only the Aurors had known about it. On the census record, George had left for Seoul with a one-way Portkey.

George said he didn’t know anything enough, magical or not, to venture beyond Muggle London.

“I could have helped,” Draco said.

“I…I wanted to start clean,” George replied, his head bowed.

Draco nodded. “Did you get my owls?”

George’s face flushed again. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you read them?”

Greg hesitated, then gave an awkward shrug. “Reading…I…you know…”

“Still haven’t figured it out?” Draco asked, and to my surprise, the corners of his mouth, pink and soft again, lifted into a smile. George beamed, and the transformation was as amazing. His dull, forgettable face split into the widest grin, showing off the whitest, most perfect teeth I’d ever seen. It was impossible to not smile back, and I did. Harry too. “Er…I’m sorry,” George said again, looking not that sorry at all.

His magic was fluttering. I would have missed it though, if I hadn’t been watching him, listening to him. I would have assumed that light breeze on my skin had come in from the window, the doorway…anywhere, anything unworthy of care in this setting. Harry’s magic made itself known with its roar; Draco’s, with its dripping and crashing. But George’s magic, it weaved itself, unseen and unheard, into the air around me, making sure it’d be forgotten…

Draco waved his hand. “So, what changed your mind? About coming back?”

As it turned out, Harry had gone to visit George’s bakery. “I…I kicked him out three times,” George confessed. “The Aurors pro…promised to leave me alone.” But Harry had been hard to get rid of, and George, eventually, had had to hear his plea to reconnect with Draco. _You two are doing the same thing_ , Harry had said, telling George about Eltanin Harvests. _It’s like your Vince’s Bakery._

George hadn’t been moved still, until Harry had left him a carton of eggs from Eltanin Harvests. Of all days, Harry had chosen that day to leave without talking to him, so George hadn’t got his chance to say no, to return the gift before he’d opened the carton and stared at the eggs, each impossibly fresh and large and perfect, and admitted that his world would once again go topsy-turvy in Harry Potter’s favour. He’d given Harry the treacle tart recipe. _Draco fell in love with treacle tarts after he’d seen you eat them_ , he’d told Harry. _He liked to pair them with ice cream._

Harry grinned at Draco. Draco shot him a glare.

“Are they magical?” George asked about the eggs then, wide-eyed.

Draco’s lips quirked to one side, before his Cheshire Cat defeating grin returned and I almost fell off my seat on the icebox. I loved and missed this Draco dearly—this Draco, so giddily smug about himself. The churning of the elderberry ice cream on the counter missed a beat, too, and I scrambled to make sure the tub was cool enough still. Eltanin Harvests only used magic for heating, for cleaning up potions and other unwelcoming things Muggles had left in the soil, Draco was explaining. The eggs and other produces from the farm—the tubers, the vegetables and berries—were all magic free, and safe for Muggle consumption.

Greg looked as though he was about to cry. “I…,” he stuttered, “I…” He shook his head then, and with a look of utter conviction, he stood, thundered over to where Draco was standing, and gave Draco a bear hug.

“Muggle London isn’t in Eltanin’s delivery zone.” Draco gave George a pat on his back. “But I have a small warehouse on Diagon. I’ll…give you a free trial and you can stop by and pick up groceries there. I’ll send you an order form. Harry—” he shot Harry another glare “—can be our owl, since he’s been stalking you for so long without telling me.”

George wiped his eyes with Draco’s shirt. “I missed you,” he said, his voice breaking into a sob.

“Now you miss me,” Draco drawled lightly, rolling his eyes, but from the way his magic tinkled like a summer brook, I could tell he was saying the same thing.

 _I missed you too_.

 

*~*~*~*

By late autumn, broken leaves had made their way into the attic, first in pieces, then in dust. Brad tried to sieve them out of the wood shaving, before they tainted everything with their lifeless shade of grey.

Grey, too, were the tempers of humans, and their wants and don’t-wants. I’d wished for the harder side Draco to go away, after the house spirit in him had settled here for a home. But it was the softer side that’d left instead. Gone were the skips in his steps, his mischievous grins. Instead, his smiles were reserved, his soft mouth thinned to a curve that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You see, a new round of Howlers had attacked my window. I didn’t know what had started it; all I knew was, Harry and Draco had had their first dinner out, at a pub in Hogsmeade. The toaster box had been emptied, and the things inside dispersed. Draco had made repairs on it and while the heat, the orange glow had returned, instead of staying put in the slot, it shot out sparks like a fountain.

I’d dampened the floor tiles around it, in hopes that they wouldn’t catch fire. The vapour had only make the kitchen colder, greyer, more miserable.

The sparks hadn’t stopped Harry and Draco from letter toasting. No, it wasn’t the Howlers that were toasted—those had never managed to make their way into the cottage. Instead, Draco had been opening the letters, the heart-shaped envelopes. He’d read requests upon requests for signatures, kisses ( _returning owl heart attached!_ ), presumably unwanted personal items ( _that grey robe you wore last year, when you said something nice about your teacher?)_ , and good luck ( _Please bless this talisman with your chosen palm…_ ). A white letter had once stood out among the pink ones and Draco had insisted to Harry that this one, this letter would be worth reading. But it’d turned out to be a request for Harry’s autograph. If Harry could be so kind as to owl a few, the letter said, Harry would get half the profits to be made in the souvenir shop, located across the Whitehall toilets entrance…

Could Harry come by too for a photo op?

“They’re only trying to make a living,” Harry said, gently prying the letter from Draco’s hands and feeding its corner to the sparks.

“The shop’s in the Ministry,” Draco spoke, his fists still clenched from the letter crumpling. “They’re making Galleons off you on Ministry grounds.”

“People make Galleons off me everywhere.” Harry shrugged. On the wall beside him, Candid Harry scowled his usual scowl, his beard as long and shaggy white as his hair. _Demiguise style_ , Draco had annotated beside it. “Things with my face…they sell. But as this calendar shows,” he smiled, gestured at it with a tilt of his chin “not always in the spirit of hero worship.”

His smile failed to infect Draco. “This is the Ministry,” Draco repeated.

“The Ministry…” Harry repeated, resignation burnt into his smile. “The Ministry has never minded the public having a piece of me.”

The daggers in Draco’s glare sharpened further.

“What is it?” Harry asked, his smile fading as he waved his hand. The sparks from the toaster disappeared. His back straightened; he was bracing for a fight.

“The public.” Draco repeated, setting the toaster alight once more. Had he forgotten that the fire magic in the sparks would only favour Harry? It was just like that time he’d asked for a magic-free brawl, setting the terms that were nonetheless to Harry’s advantage. “You said, the public. The public buys the Ministry-licensed Potter things.”

“The Ministry people don’t need to buy them. They see me everyday. Plus, all new hires get a bobblehead.” Harry attempted a smile and shrug again, but they looked awkward. His magic was in embers—embers that didn’t threaten water, but ignitable as soon as fire was needed.

Draco’s magic came crashing in. “I don’t care about the Ministry’s fetish of you. I just want to know this: is a wand check needed to buy a Ministry Potter thing?”

Realisation dawned on Harry. He looked at Draco.

“You’re the Head Auror, you should know.” Draco pressed on.

“There’s…,” Harry hesitated, closed and opened his eyes. But he answered, his gaze at Draco intent and sincere. “The shopping area has a special entrance.”

“Unsecured entrance.”

Harry nodded.

“So.” The furrow between Draco’s brows was deep and sharp enough to cut ice. A loud, high-pitched cry had taken the place of the _drip, drip, drip_ in his magic, like that of a torrential downpour when it hit the ground. “If a non-Ministry employee wants to buy a Potter bobblehead, they could breeze right in. What if _I_ —” he raised his voice. “What if _I,_ Draco Malfoy, want to buy a Potter bobblehead?”

“Draco…” Harry was at a loss for words. He slouched, looking small again by the toaster. I crawled along the pipe under the sink, found the joint that was weak and sat on it. Would that help to keep it intact when it burst? When Draco burst?

“I thought so.” Draco sneered at Harry’s reticence. “Apparently, it was royal treatment to have MLE escorts holding my arms before I even stepped into the telephone booth. Next time, I’ll just say I want a Potter bobblehead.”

But the burst of water magic didn’t come. Instead, Draco grabbed the still unopened letters and stood, _Accio_ ’ed the rubbish bin and chucked them all inside. Meanwhile, Harry remained on his knees by the toaster, looking miserable right down to the hem of his tailored robe, where a spark had just singed a small hole.

He retrieved his wand and repaired it.

 

*~*~*~*

The Howlers brought Hermione to the cottage on a weeknight. _Oh, Harry_. She gave Harry a hug after she’d seen the burnt remnants outside. Harry patted her arms while she wept.

“What do you want me to say to the reporters?” she asked, wiping her tears dry. Harry shook his head. Hermione followed his gaze to the threshold, to where Draco had just retreated into the living room. “I know you’ve never wanted to say anything,” she said. “But is it fair to Draco…”

Harry’s gaze remained at where Draco had been. “It isn’t fair,” Harry answered. He sighed and looked at Hermione again. “I never thought this is something I’d have to think about. Whether something is fair for Draco Malfoy.”

“You worried about it during the trials.” Hermione gave Harry a forced smile. “And it’s a good something to worry about now, right?” She gave him another squeeze with her arms.

“It is.” A hint of smile tugged on Harry’s lips. It wasn’t not forced. “I just don’t know what to think. What’s fair, and what’s easy. For him.”

I sensed a spark of fire magic from Hermione, powerful and bright. She opened her mouth, but then, she bit her lip and swallowed her words, and her magic was quiet, balanced again. She pulled herself back from Harry, watched Harry for a moment and ran her fingers through his wild hair. “Remember, if things become…too much to take, I’m with you. No matter what your decision is, where you end up going, I’m with you.”

Harry nodded.

 

*~*~*~*

Hermione didn’t give Draco a hug. Draco had cornered her first, after he’d sent Harry away to check on the Chickens.

I crawled onto the weak pipe and sat on it again, sniffed the empty coffee cup Hermione had brought with her. _PSL_ , the dark letters said, on the print of a selkie princess. It smelled wrong, of warm, sunny autumns when all I could feel around me was cold and dark. I set it aside.

“I heard,” Draco said.

Hermione blinked, but looked unfazed. She _Accio’ed_ the coffee cup, washed it, and filled it with water, took a sip and waited.

I thought Draco would ask about what she’d thought of saying to the reporters, or what, exactly, was fair or easy.

But he didn’t. “What’s too much for Harry to take?” he asked.

Hermione didn’t expect the question. She put down the cup, and for a long moment, did and said nothing but look at Draco. Her fire magic sparked again—powerful, short-lived bursts that were prodding, probing.

“Ministry secrets?” Draco asked, attempting a sneer, but his nerves showed. A tremor had permeated his voice. He heard it too, and hid it with his tea.

“I’m deciding what to say, and if I should say it.” Hermione replied, honestly, but not unkindly, as she had when Draco had asked about Elaine. “But no, Draco, they’re not secrets. The trouble is, perhaps, that they’re not.”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak in runes. If I’m not fit to hear whatever you have in mind, then—” Draco’s chest heaved, and he waved his hand. “I understand.”

Hermione watched him some more. Draco evolved slowly in front of her eyes, from avoiding her gaze to straightening, to, finally, meeting her in the eye. The prodding receded, carried away by Hermione’s water magic. “Do you read the _Prophet_ , Draco?”

“I try not to,” Draco replied.

“Try,” Hermione repeated.

“Trying is difficult,” Draco explained. “When the _Prophet_ is all about gossip.”

“Still a fan of gossip?”

“Not particularly.” Draco waved his hand again, sighed, and supplied, “Not anymore.” He pulled a chair by the table and sat down. “Gossips,” he said, softly, “they echo like real news doesn’t. I have customers. They talk.”

Hermione nodded. “What do you think, of the Harry you hear in those gossips?”

 _Come-hole_ , I recalled. Draco might have recalled the same thing too; he looked sideways, and wrung his hands. “You shouldn’t be asking me. You’re his mouthpiece.”

Hermione sighed. “More like public relations.”

“Same thing.”

“They—the press—have questions they can’t get to him, so they catch me on my way home. I’m a solicitor. I defend on behalf of those who have nothing and I need, at least, a cordial relationship with those vult…” She stopped herself and searched for another word, hesitated before she considered herself willing to say it aloud. “People. I comply with those people’s wishes, every now and then.” She approached the table, met Draco in the eyes again and pulled another chair. But she didn’t sit. She asked, her voice soft. “Do you believe me if I tell you this, that I don’t look forward to speaking for Harry? That… “ she sighed again, looking away, contemplated for one more moment before continuing “…That I’m waiting for the moment Harry will realise how fed up he should feel?”

Draco said nothing. He watched her.

“I’ll ask your next question for you, Draco. Then, why am I doing this? Why am I speaking for Harry, why am I even working for the Ministry when I can do my job more effectively anywhere else? Anywhere I don’t have to explain why representing those people doesn’t taint my profile and reputation? Or worse, taint the Ministry’s profile and reputation?” She stopped, waiting a beat for Draco to say something.

Draco stayed mum. Watchful.

Hermione deflated, and replied to herself. “I’m doing this, because…” She pulled her bushy hair behind her shoulder, her eyes downcast for a moment before looking up again. I felt, alternatively, ripples of fire, water, wind, and earth magic rolling off her. She hadn’t wanted this conversation; the balance of her magic was slipping. “I’m doing this—” she talked to where the hole in the wall had been, the hole from the fire, the failed exorcism for Elaine “—because I practically begged Harry to join the Ministry with me. He didn’t want to. He wanted to do something small, something private. Something like opening an orphanage. He was clever enough to see that…two teenagers, we couldn’t change the world.”

Draco pondered, before opening up finally. “You two did change the world.”

“On the surface. We didn’t change the rot in human nature that made the world the way it was.”

“Harry’s born to be an Auror,” Draco responded, his voice light.

Hermione recognised the comfort in his words. She acknowledged it with a nod. Her magic tilted, just slightly, towards water. “Harry’s born to be a soldier.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Soldiers, they’re groomed to fight authority. They’re never taught how to _be_ authority.”

“You think Harry isn’t power hungry enough.”

“I think Harry isn’t selfish enough.”

Those words caught Draco by surprise. His jaw clenched. Once.

“Harry thinks,” Hermione continued, “being in the position of authority means he has to take care of everyone. He has to do everything people ask of him. He has to swallow everything people throw at him.”

“Am I throwing things at him?”

“I don’t think you are. But the things people throw at him,” Hermione paused, “they’ll catch up to you soon. The Howlers,” she said, looking outside the window. “They’re only a start.”

The water magic in Draco stilled, then surged. He stood up, the hardness in his face back in full force. “Are you trying to get me to leave him?” he asked. I felt the teeth of his words grinding into the pipe under me. It shuddered, the water inside becoming turbulent. I held onto the metal, the water contained within it, with my hands. My freezing hands. “Should I remind you,” Draco hissed, “I’ve had no shortage of things thrown at me. A halo or two, I—”

“No, Draco.”

Hermione had stopped Draco by clutching him by his shoulders. She realised where her hands had landed belatedly and lifted them, like Draco could burn her, like Draco’s magic could destroy anything without flooding itself. “I’m trying to…What I meant to say is…” I’d never seen Hermione so awkward, so flustered before. Draco hadn’t, either, if his widened eyes were to go by. He brushed his fringe back. His face softened.

“Please, Draco.” Hermione tried again, after she’d gathered herself. “Please don’t take what I said the wrong way. What I want to say is…I hope you can help Harry. Help him read what’s going on in the world around him. Why people—people who’re not you, me, Ron, his friends and family—make him do the things they make him do.”

“Can’t you do it yourself?” Draco asked. The pipe I was sitting on had stilled. “Why are you telling me all this?” I looked at him, at his face, his expression turned against the setting sun.

It wasn’t cruel. It was pensive, and curious.

I breathed out a sigh of relief. As silence descended upon the kitchen, I crawled off the pipe, tightened the taps and extinguished the pilot in the oven, quieting, making peace in the space for them to think, to speak.

Hermione’s magic was flowing, like Draco’s.

She’d gone back for her cup of water at the counter. It’d been tainted brown, from the old coffee she hadn’t cleared from the seams of the cup. “Because you understand authority in ways that Harry and I don’t,” she answered Draco, finally, taking a sip. “But more importantly…” Draco turned to her at her pause. “Because you understand Harry in ways that I don’t.”

Another pause. Another sip.

“Because you can get to Harry in ways that I can’t.”

Draco nodded, and said nothing to that.

 

*~*~*~*

But he took Hermione’s words to heart. At the dawns to come, he went through Harry’s old notebooks. Short on parchment, he took his own notes on the folded calendar page that Harry had been using as a bookmark. The Muggle Queen and Minister Wilhemina Tuft smiled at the world again as the page unfolded, their handshakes mired by the creases Harry had made when he’d twisted the paper before.

Short on coloured ink too, Draco spelled glitter into the ink. He drew a line across the page in black, starting from the number “1998”. _Oh_ , I thought, _a timeline_ , as he put in tick-marks while he went through Harry’s notes. He annotated the marks with alphabets, and colours: “E”s were in blue, “B”s were in green. There were also names written at the side, of places and people I failed to recognise. The red, shiny ink, my favourite, had no alphabet for it though. Instead, it drew a strike on the names: “Shacklebolt”, “Robards”…

When the sun rose—and it rose late, as October approached its finale—Draco would have got himself so worked up that sometimes, he’d leave the cottage without breakfast. Harry would come down to an empty kitchen, to his notebooks on the table with the folded calendar page-bookmark neatly in place.

He’d cook eggs for himself, cracking them perfectly against the bowl and whipping them by hand, as his wand would flip through the notebooks, searching for things Draco had written down. It wouldn’t find any. Harry would sigh, start a new leaf in his latest notebook, and take fresh notes from the newspaper. He wouldn’t stay on the task for long, though. He’d give the stack of old notebooks another look, and flip through their pages again. This time by hand, too.

The embers of his magic, they were always on alert those days. Meanwhile, I made snowflakes out of the icebox and patched them all over the weak pipes, asked Brad to blow on them to keep them frozen. For once I was grateful for the winds whistling in the attic…

When Draco did say something, two timelines would be sitting on the table.

By the napkins was the one Draco had been working on, on the crumpled calendar page with the glittered inks, the marks that grew along the black line like…when nothing grew on the horizon, when all that was left on the barren ground were tufts of grass that had yet to die. Each tuft of grass was made with many “B”s huddling around an “E”, the latter uniformly spaced along the timeline. The dense marks for the “B”s created the patchy grass look.

The other timeline looked almost identical, with the same dying tufts of grass, but everything was drawn in black. It was also drawn on the centrefold of a notebook, the timeline stretching from one page to the other. There were no names of people and places, but the “E”s and “B”s were spelled out in full.

“E” for elections. “B” for battle.

“This isn’t news to you,” Draco said.

He and Harry were standing at opposite sides of the table, staring at the timelines and resolutely not at each other. I leaned on the table between them, squinting at the two timelines, trying to discern the differences between them.

Harry’s handwriting was uglier. His timeline also had even more “B”s around the “E”s.

I tilted my head and looked again. The “B”s weren’t really surrounding the “E”s, after all, but rather, they were leaning into the “E”s from the left side. I mumbled to myself, translating the alphabets and tick-marks into what they really meant, on the scale of time. A lot of battles…in the few months…right before the elections. Under the densest tufts of grass, when the battles had been the most frequent, Draco had jotted down the crossed out names.

_Oh._

“More battles than I’d thought,” Draco said.

“Undercover operations,” Harry said, bent at the waist and supporting himself on his arms. His shoulder blades spread like wings, like wings defending his timeline.

Maybe they were.

“So, you’re fully aware that the Ministry has a habit of starting wars right before elections.”

Harry said nothing.

“Right before elections—” Draco repeated himself, his expression as dark as his tone “—in which the incumbent Ministers miraculously get re-elected from the fireworks of patriotic sentiment.”

“The elections are fair.”

“Miraculously,” Draco ignored Harry. “Because no Ministers get re-elected without a war when the economy is in shambles. The only exception was Unctuous Osbert in 1794, and that was because one Septimus Malfoy had bought out a constituency, or a few. What’s the Galleons to GBP exchange rate now? One to fifteen pence, tops? Has it ever passed the one GBP mark since the end of that War?” He jabbed at the start of the timeline. _1998._

“They’re bad people no matter when we fight them.”

“I agree. They’re bad people no matter when we fight them. They’re bad people before elections; they’re bad people between elections. Smugglers, potioneers, supremacists, and ex-DEs. The last time I checked, they don’t hibernate. MLE could have won many more battles, lose far fewer people if they spread things out over time, focus on one warfront at a time. You know this. ”

“The timing was right, okay?”

“Right how? So Shacklebolt and Robards could get buried the same day as the Winner’s Ball? So the newly re-minted Ministers could shed a tear about the heroic demise of their Head Aurors in front of the cameras? So they could add, I don’t know, _gravitas_ to an event that would otherwise have been about nothing but people being drunk on their arses, that no history books would bother to remember?”

“It’s a coincidence. Only Robards—”

“Shacklebolt was in a coma for a month. He only missed it by that reason—”

“I know I didn’t cover Kingsley well enough, okay? You don’t have to rub it in—”

“I’m not rubbing it in. And I disagree with you that you didn’t cover him well enough. How many warfronts were the Aurors tending at the time? How many battles, missions, stakeouts were passing through your office—”

“How can you disagree with me if you weren’t there? It’s my job, okay? I was there. I know I could have done something, all right? I know I didn’t plan well enough. I missed the missive from Liverpool, and I should have put more senior Aurors at Galway, and…”

Harry rattled on. Soon, I was lost. The world outside the cottage was never within my reach, never mind within my understanding. I watched them, one on each side of me, the pair of timelines like a crevice drawn by the two of them to divide themselves.

Harry’s magic, his once impeccably controlled embers, had turned into a twinkling, hopping mess, like the sparks from the barely repaired toaster.

Meanwhile, Draco’s magic, a drizzle when the conversation had started, had grown heavier and heavier. At the cry of its downpour, he grabbed Harry’s self-fill quill on the table, extended the timeline on the crumpled paper just a little past the present. He wrote down an “E” at the new end, filled the space between it and the tick-mark representing the present with another tuft of grass. “Bs”, he wrote above it. Then, under that short stretch of timeline, he wrote down “Harry Potter,” and crossed it out with so much force that the paper, with its age and its creases, finally tore into two.

I clutched the edge of the table, tried to calm myself as I made sense of the new timeline. Battles, from the present to an election coming soon, and Harry…Harry’s name being crossed out during the battles, like Shacklebolt’s name had been crossed out. Like Robards’ name had been crossed out…

Draco pushed the two halves of the paper under the wings of Harry’s arms, and walked out the kitchen without another word.

Behind him, Harry collapsed into a chair. He pieced the two halves together, and after a long moment of staring at them, he picked up the quill, and drew circles to the immediate left of each battle tuft. One of the circles fell right on the mark of the present. He wrote “F” on the circles, and the legend as he’d had for the other alphabets.

_F=Funding approved (“Right Timing”)_

He smiled his sad smile at the legend, the circles. Then, he retrieved his wand and spelled _Incendio_ on the paper halves.

I closed my eyes as the paper turned into ashes. Almost five decades later, The Queen, Minister Tuft and their handshake were no more.

 

*~*~*~*

That night, Harry promised Draco he wouldn’t become a crossed-out name. Brad told me that. Harry promised too, that he’d retire after the upcoming deluge of battles. _Yes,_ he confirmed, _it’s coming_. He couldn’t leave now, not when his teammates were so young; they’d lost so many experienced Aurors in the field. He couldn’t leave when the raids had been planned for months, no, for years…

Draco nodded, let Harry press a kiss on his quiet lips, and bid him goodnight.

Harry fell asleep soon after that, while Draco tossed and turned for hours, staring into the moon behind the clouds. He tried to brush aside Harry’s fringe when Harry snuggled against him, but Harry’s wild curls clung to his fingers instead. He whispered at the scar, “Why do you always make me feel I’m the worst person in the world?”

Harry only made a little noise at that, and snuggled closer.

 

*~*~*~*

As prophesied, dittany soon smeared the many counters in the kitchen, prepared by Harry’s faster knife, his nimbler hands. But Draco didn’t fidget, couldn’t get off from the sight of those hands any more. Instead, he knelt beside Harry, scooped up the paste and spread it over the wounds, chewing his lip, swallowing everything he’d wanted to say. Once, I saw him throw a sharp, longing glance at the scissors beside him, the one he’d used to cut the bandages. I could almost imagine, in the tempest in his magic, that he’d stab Harry with it, right into the cut. He’d only stop because blood was seeping from the bandage, blood he could barely keep from dripping on the floor…

After midnight, he would spend hours on his knees again, cleaning the kitchen, apologising to me. Harry didn’t know half of the healing spells, he’d say. They took his ability to live for granted. They overestimated his will to survive, mistook his luck for his will…

He’d rub the tiles again in circles, harder this time.

 _It terrifies me_.

 

 


	12. Hurt

Winter season had arrived with newly designed robes. Their trims were ever more elegant than before, and the silk carried a shimmer that had to be Demiguise hair. Draco had insisted on wearing them, even if they couldn’t fit him anymore. Harry wouldn’t be needing them, wouldn’t be giving speeches anytime soon.

Coffee had taken the place of the smoothie in the morning, with three times the sugar and no milk. Draco headed out into the cold with it, coming home only to sleep. The long dreaded, long forgotten takeaway cartons had made their way back into the icebox; Draco had taken a bite of each, thrown the plastic fork inside, and never touched them again. His latest sustenance was the pastries from George, their treacle so thick that it’d overflowed the crust. He shook a can of Muggle whip cream and squeezed it into his mouth.

Meanwhile, he’d lost stone after stone. There was little left of him but bones and magic.

He’d tried to use up the fresh, healthy foods he’d no longer had the appetite for, but he’d shivered, poured the gazpacho down the drain. His patience for cooking with fire had worn out far before that; it’d lasted only for three days.

Three days, since Harry had been admitted into St Mungo’s.

Brad and I had only known about the news because we’d made love again, and often. Even with the chill in the cottage, once the night had fallen and the red Auror robe with it, Draco hadn’t been able to keep his hands off Harry. Their sweat, their coupling, their moans…Brad and my hands had ended up all over each other, too. We’d spent hours, while Harry and Draco had been sleeping, united as one.

It’d felt wonderful, but what had been so addicting, that’d made us so hungry for more, was the new visions it’d offered. The cottage had turned into a landscape to me. Brad, meanwhile, had got acquainted with the stretch of land outside the cottage.

Barren, he’d said with a sigh. Dead grass and not much else. A lone dirt road pointing into the unseen for him.

The day Harry had got hurt, an extra edition of the _Prophet_ had arrived before dawn. Draco had skimmed it and dashed out with it in his work clothes, a fresh, clean set of his almost Muggle Eltanin Harvest T-shirt and jeans.

He hadn’t come back that night. The next morning, the owl left the paper outside the window. Brad and I tried coupling again, just to read the paper, but neither of our hearts were in it enough for his vision to work. There was a photo of Draco, Brad said, snarling at—was it a mannequin?—on a city street. _Unsanitary!_ shouted the headline. _A threat to hospital security_ , complained the caption.

Draco came home that night, finally, in a set of Muggle clothes I hadn’t seen before. Securing pins still dotted the collar of his shirt, and a price tag dangled from the belt loop of his trousers. His stance was stiff, his back too straight and his chin too high, while the _Lumos_ he’d cast to light his way was weak and unsteady. In its flickering glow, I watched him retrieve his Eltanin uniform from his pocket. It was still clean, and neatly folded.

I lit up a single flame on the stovetop. I couldn’t keep my worries in the dark anymore. _What happened?_

He turned to the fire, and it put itself out without my nudging. His eyes were blood red.

I backed off. The piquant smell of herbs and tincture had entered the kitchen with him, prickling my throat. Hospital, the caption on the _Prophet_ had said. Hospital. And Draco had come home without Harry…

Draco didn’t say a word. He threw his work clothes into the sink, and twisted the tap to full blast. Water splashed against the clothes, bounced off the porcelain and hit the floor. A damp, transparent patch grew in the pastel pink of his shirt. But he refused to let the tap go. His knuckles went white as he gripped on it, tried to twist it further, while his blood-red eyes shot daggers at a memory I couldn’t see. Painful tears welled in my eyes. My wrists…

Draco was crushing my wrists.

He couldn’t have. He was human and I wasn’t. Unless…

Unless.

The house spirits in him.

I kicked the pipes with all my might. How could I be a match to house spirits who could once move mountains? I scrambled for my footing and stomped on where the joints were. The water in the pipe gurgled and choked, and the water exiting from the tap began to choke too. It came out in spurts, like it was vomiting.

_Please, Draco. Please. Stop!_

Draco’s grip on the tap loosened. He heard me, or something inside him did. He let go.

He said nothing, nothing more than the daggers still flashing in his eyes, and left the kitchen. His bare feet trailed one another until they carried him past the threshold.

I panted, rubbed my wrists and ankles. The tap was still running. I lit a flame again, as weak and unsteady as Draco’s light. The tap let out a creak, a protest that I hadn’t fended it well, and ran smoothly again.

Then, I saw Draco’s clothes in the sink.

Their colours were bleeding off. The red of his T-shirt, the blue of his jeans were mingling into a whirlpool of bruise purple, which gurgled into non-existence. I put a trembling hand on the fabric, snatched it back when I felt the harsh magic scrubbing it, polishing it, trying to remove filth that didn’t exist. A loud rip soon tore apart the silence of the kitchen. The T-shirt had succumbed to the scrubbing force and broke into two…

Meanwhile, above my head, Draco let out a cry and started trashing the bedroom.

 _Earth magic is a good fortifier_ , Brad would tell me about it, bringing me closer to his chest. _But I let him break everything_.

I looked up, past the beams and planks impenetrable to my eyes, up to where, Brad said, Draco was still sitting and staring at nothing. _He’s hurt,_ Brad said to me, _I think._

 _Where?_ I asked, sounding petulant but I didn’t care. I hadn’t seen wounds on Draco. I rubbed my sore wrists again.

 _I don’t know_ , Brad answered. _Inside._

I nodded in his arms, traced the long, red gash marring his chest. _How did this happen?_ I asked. I couldn’t think of anything with clay up there—clay, the only worldly thing that connected spirits and humans, that could bridge us, slice into us. _My fault_ , Brad replied, attempting a smile that looked like a wince. _I tried to save the baby cactus. The pot burst. He…Draco…_ Brad took a breath. _He wouldn’t hurt me. Not intentionally._

He sounded less than convinced.

_Did you save the cactus?_

Brad shook his head, looking miserable. _It burst too. It boiled itself inside out._ He shuddered, hid his face in the shadow of his fringe. He was still shaken, like I was.

 _Why didn’t you hide? I would do that, you know me._ I searched for him under his curtain of hair, smiled at him between sniffles. I’d thought my days of sniffling for Harry and Draco had been over, but no. I touched the scar in front of me again. Didn’t Draco have a scar at the same place? He should know how much it hurt. _Does this still hurt?_

Brad lied, shook his head again. He sat taller, pulled his fringe back and smiled a grimace of fake courage at me. It would have soothed my nerves a few years ago, maybe even a few seasons ago, but not anymore. I shook my head back at him— _please don’t pretend for me—_ and he stopped, his face falling into the shadows again. _But the bedroom_ … He couldn’t go on.

The bedroom was in ruins.

Not that it mattered. Draco hadn’t slept there much since. The daybreak after he’d hurt Brad and me, he left the cottage in the best robe sent to Harry for the Christmas speeches. The charcoal grey number had a silver trim, its sleeves were too short for Draco and its shoulder line too wide. It also resisted Draco’s every altering spell. Frustrated, Draco sprinkled water on it.

 _Tergeo_.

His spell deflected, siphoning his coffee into the sink instead. Draco slammed his wand on the counter, his eyes narrowed in comprehension. It wasn’t the altering spells, after all. That robe was…Draco-resistant. The Ministry had made Harry’s clothes Draco-resistant.

The brown liquid gathered into a whirlpool and gurgled away, like the red and blue of Draco’s work clothes. I thought of the Howlers, the many hearts that had wanted Harry’s robes for themselves.

Draco and the ill-fitting robe still smelled of hospital when they returned to the cottage that night. They smelled of soil too, sweat and the oldest kind of fertilisers. I sniffed again, from my safe, now too-small alcove behind the curtains. Draco had worn the robe to the farms; the mud-brown paste lining the hem, the sweat stains at the collar were proof of it. A few splinters of carton wood remained on his chest, caught in place by the visitor’s badge from St Mungo’s…

Had he gone to the farm before he’d gone to the hospital? And they’d let him in…like this? I sniffed again, peered out from the curtain to take a better look at the muddy thing at the hem. It…It definitely wasn’t soil. And they called him _unsanitary_ in his Eltanin T-shirt and jeans?

It made no sense. It made no sense at all.

Draco began to undress himself at the centre of the kitchen, the same spot where he’d used to survey the place and choose the things to thieve. His bony fingers twisted the buttons out their hoops, one by one, showing a care no robe so stained and smelly should ever deserve.

The smell only got stronger when the sullied silk slipped off his shoulders. I gagged, just like I’d gagged to the rotten apples from what’d seemed a lifetime ago. The poop at the hem drew a brown line along the tattoo on his forearm as he gathered the robe into a ball.

I summoned my non-existent courage and twisted the tap on, just a smidge. The gentle stream I was hoping for came out in spurts again, nervous like my breaths. The icebox rumbled.

He looked at them, at me. Gone were the daggers in his eyes, which were only redder than the night before. He reached out with his free hand, and gave the arc of the tap a rub. _I’m really sorry about last night_ , he said. _And I don’t need the water. Thank you._

 _Please,_ I tried to say with the water, its spurts and splashes. _Please tell me what’s going on, what happened to Harry…_

He ignored me, the turn of his wrist as he twisted the tap shut gentle, but firm. He found the rubbish bin under the sink, and then…

He shoved the robe inside, stuffed it in as deep as he could with his fist.

The next morning, he came down wearing nothing but his bare skin and Sleekeazy, his widow’s peak sharp on his helmet of blond hair. He found the rubbish bin under the sink again, rummaged for the robe and held it up, and he…

He put it back on himself, re-buttoned everything again with his bony, delicate hands. It reeked. He reeked. The silk had crumpled overnight; it hung like rotten cabbage on his emaciated frame.

And he went out again, just like that, but not before he’d cleared out the chicken coop. Fresh brown smears had marred the skirt when he’d disappeared beyond the threshold of the kitchen one last time, the Editorials of the _Prophet_ under his arms. _Chicken waste make good fertilisers_ , he’d once told a wincing Harry, shrinking a package with the same wrapping and putting them in his anorak pocket.

I’d never seen Draco Banish a thing. He’d call things awful; he’d insult them, load them in a carton for his frenemies; he’d sully them, throw them away with all the flourish he could muster. But he’d never make them cease to exist. Things around him were destined to grow old…

If only, I thought, Harry had the luck to do the same.

Draco still smelled of the hospital when he came home. The fetid smell of decay mocked the aseptic, _fake_ smell of healing clinging desperately on his visitor’s badge. Blotches of pink had marked the pale skin around the collar and the cuffs. Scratch marks too, thin lines of scarlet where the blotches were.

Draco’s skin couldn’t take the filth anymore.

His set jaw and straight back gave away as he sat down by the table. He unbuttoned the robe and shook off half of it, goosebumps forming on his chest and arms that were also splotchy and scratched. I lit the stovetop as fast as I could, one flame after another. He leaned on his elbows, his head bowed. He forked his fingers into his helmet of hair.

 _Harry…won’t be back for a while_ , he finally said, looking through a loose lock of hair that had broken loose from the Sleekeazy. Even in the shadows of the night, his eyes looked more red than grey. _He was stupid enough to get himself hurt._

He couldn’t continue anymore, not for a while. He cried, round, sparkling tears smoothing the hard angles of his face. He didn’t seem to mind at all that I was watching him. In fact, he seemed proud that I was watching him, and his words began to flow with an ease that Harry had never shown. _I made him promise, that he’ll retire after this round of battles. I told him the farm needs helping hands, and he’ll do. There’ll be no fancy clothes, no hair products, no governess for manners even if he cares for one…_

He snorted, an ugly sound amidst his sobs. The shadow under his cheekbones, his pink lips and silver and red eyes and purplish circles under those eyes…it looked as though a bunch of people had fought over the colour palette to use on him, only to have abandoned their effort at the same time. He looked so lonely like this. I forgot the stench and knelt before him, cooled my hand with his ice magic and rest it on his chest, where the angriest splotch was, where the angry gash on Brad had been.

He couldn’t feel me. But I could feel him, his heart with a house within, just like my own.

_And I’ll give all the speeches he’ll ever have to give, except…well, except, maybe one occasion…_

The pain on Draco’s face morphed into a smile—a sweet, gentle one with all the snot and tears intact, which he only offhandedly wiped away, his nose wrinkled with the force. He stood and retreated upstairs, the filthy robe still dangling off him, and he’d spend the rest of the night mending the bedroom, the shelves and table and bed that would only turn more rickety with his still-not-very-good homemaking spells.

It would take a new year, a new calendar on the wall ( _Harry Potter: Sexy Moments_ ), and Draco’s sullying every single robe Harry had worn to a speech, for me to find out the occasion Draco had been thinking of. The occasion that might require Harry to give a speech.

And I would learn…how to destroy this cottage.

Well, half of it.

*~*~*~*

Harry came home on a bright, sunny Monday in February, also the coldest day of the season. He was bundled up head-to-toe—scarves, gloves, a bright red Muggle jacket with a brown furry hat—for the short walk between the cottage and the Apparition point.

I almost failed to recognise him when those items came off. His sun-kissed skin had faded to a shade paler than Draco’s, and his hair was limp and grey at the temples. The most striking, though, was the new scar on his forehead, scarlet like a scorching blade and slicing right through where the lightning had been. It struck further, crossed the height of his left eye to half way down his cheek. That eye, too, had lost its colour. A dull, lifeless grey was surveying the kitchen in front of him.

I turned on the heat as fast as I could. _“_ Hi,” Harry mouthed at me, smiling.

Draco sat him down with Harry’s back facing the stove, and announced he’d make tea for two. Darjeeling white, the same one served to Andromeda, and no milk. He put the kettle on, set a pair of cups and saucers to Levitate slowly onto the table, while he rummaged for something in his pocket. He soon found it, a spool of silver that glinted as soon as it met the rays from the sun.

He uncoiled the spool with a quiet spell, and I gasped when I saw what they were. Two identical necklaces, their chain fine as a needle of rain. It caught light at all the right places, disappeared into the air in the others.

And dangling from each chain was a silver ring, bright as the sun itself. Only on the front side though; the back side was inscribed with runes so small, so dense that the surface appeared black. The rings turned; I was mesmerised, hypnotised by their spin. Bright, dark, bright, dark…

Draco didn’t bother to sit down. He held one of the chains high and dropped it onto himself; it slid down his hair and settled at its rightful place, around his neck. The other he held up, approached Harry quietly from the back, and dropped it too. The chain got caught in Harry’s hair, limp as it was, and Harry felt it, reached behind his head as he tried to see, cross-eyed, the small hoop dangling in front of his spectacles. He gave his head a shake and the chain recommenced its free fall, until, finally, the ring rested on his chest.

It sparkled, demanding attention. Harry raised it to his eye level. “This…,” he whispered.

Draco approached the table, holding the pot of tea. He set it down and picked the chair across from Harry’s. The steam from the tea curled between them, spreading its fragrance, fogging up the windows. Harry’s glasses were fogging up too. He took them off, wiped them with his jumper while his good eye squinted at Draco, tracking his every movement.

Draco leaned back on the chair and crossed his legs. He looked proud, defensive.

The fog. It didn’t feel right. The kettle was off the stove, the tea was cooling, but it wasn’t dissipating. I grabbed the curtains and tried to clear the windows, like Harry was doing to his glasses. It did nothing. Things only got wetter, heavier.

Meanwhile, the curl of steam continued its innocent dance between Harry and Draco.

Draco spoke first.

“I’m staking my claim.”

Harry put his glasses back on, spectacles that not only remained foggy but now carried scratches from the jumper. He uttered a spell, and it only cleared the lens half way. It was enough, though. He caught sight of the same ring on Draco’s chest, and his face brightened.

“People usually ask,” he said, his lips tugged in amusement. The steam had brought colour back to his face, which turned another shade pinker as he turned the ring in his hands. “You know, on their knees _.”_

“I’m not asking,” Draco said.

 _“_ I can’t say no?” Harry asked, smiling wide now.

“I’m not asking,” Draco repeated.

“Why?” Harry asked, mischief fading from his face. He could tell something was wrong. His glasses had fogged up again.

“You’re taking this.” Draco’s expression was hard, his voice low. He nodded at the ring in Harry’s hand. “You’ll take this, file your resignation—”

Harry’s smile, his colour drained away.

“—and you’ll either work in my farm, or stay home.”

Harry dropped the ring, lightly, back onto his chest. He uttered another spell for his glasses; it only worked a quarter way this time. _“_ Draco, this is unfair.”

“I’m done with caring what’s fair.”

“What if I say no?” Harry asked again, all playfulness gone.

“Then I leave.”

Harry slouched in his chair. He blinked, searched for the right words. _“_ Look, Draco.” His voice was weak and hoarse. “I understand the last few months have been hard for you—”

“But you don’t understand enough to do what I want.”

“I promised already I’ll do it. I’ll leave as soon as the raids are over.” He cast a spell on his glasses again, and this time, it did nothing at all. He pushed them up and rested them on his hair, his green eye squinting at Draco, while his grey one remained wide and unseeing. “Can we please talk about this later? When I can argue?”

“No. I want to talk about this now, precisely because you can’t argue. You can’t distract me with s…something else.” Draco caught himself in time, but the admittance of his weakness for Harry broke his composure for a second. Harry’s expression softened across the table, and Draco’s eyes narrowed even more as he steeled himself and forged ahead. “And if I understand you enough,” he sneered, sounding even colder now, emphasising  _I_ and _you_ , “you _are_ planning to fight me, aren’t you?”

Harry watched him, as intently as he could. “I don’t like blackmail,” he whispered.

Draco smirked. _“_ You call this blackmail.”

“Yes, you’re forcing me to choose between you and—”

“—and what, Harry?” Draco raised his voice. “Getting a nobody re-elected? Getting yourself dolled up in a way that’ll never suit you? Getting your life an inch away from Death? Pray tell, Harry, what, or who, exactly am I competing against—”

“I told you. These are bad people I’m fighting, all right? These are bad people who put this—” Harry pointed at his scar “—on me—”

“Yes, and you’re the only person who could’ve died from it because it hit your old one, because you already had a crack there, showing itself off every second, every minute, every fucking hour of your life, begging for the Dark to seep in again—”

“It’s just bad luck—”

“No, Harry.” Draco let out a shrill laugh. “It’s good luck. It takes tremendously good luck for you to be still sitting here, talking to me. The same luck that’ll run out—”

“I’m good at fighting—”

“—and where does it leave me when your luck runs out?” Draco talked above him, sprung from his seat. “What do you expect? Me, wearing a black lace veil and dropping flowers on your grave every Sunday? I’ll tell you what, Potter, don’t expect that. Don’t ever expect that from me. They’ll bar me from it—they, who said I was too unsanitary to see you in the hospital, will say I’m too unsanitary to go near your grave.” He was shouting now, pointing at the doorway, at the _they_ s outside the cottage. “And by then, I won’t have any bespoke robes of yours left to get myself close to you anymore. I won’t have anything on me that they can’t deny is yours.” His voice cracked; condensates oozed from the fog, water like tears beading on the dead dahlia in the vase on the counter. “The last few months, Harry, it was your robes they let in. Do you see that? Do you see that it was your robes that got the visitor’s badge in St Mungo’s? It didn’t matter they were soaked with rot and feces; they were good enough for you. Meanwhile, I’m just this thing, this pest clinging onto them—”

“You know this isn’t true—”

“Do I?” Draco let out another shrill laugh. “And isn’t it the truth? They all think they have a piece of you. That’s what they’ve been telling me, with the Howlers and hearts, the mannequin, the tailoring that made sure that my magic couldn’t touch your robes. They all think they have a big piece of you, a bigger piece than mine, anyway. And I was furious, Harry. I felt insulted, humiliated when I had to argue my place in your life with a fucking mannequin, in front of a hospital where anyone else could walk in. But what was I to say to her? What was I supposed to say to her, to everyone? I stood there, Harry, and I realised, they did own you. They own you, because you’ve let them. You’ve let them do whatever they want with you. Use your name in vain; sell bobbleheads, claim righteous causes for wars that have zero reasons to be fought. You’ve let them decide when, and how, you’ll risk your life for them—”

“Draco, there’s no you versus them.” Harry sounded so, so tired. “Whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it for…”

“I’ve tried,” Draco ignored him. His voice cracked again. The fog was so dense now, I could barely see him, his frightful, heavy, crying magic. “Believe it or not, I’ve tried to think that way. I tell myself, I’m in love with Harry Potter. That’s part of the deal, isn’t it? It’s my role to play the long suffering, misunderstood lover of a hero, count the petals of some sad-looking flora to the day I lose you to some greater good. But I look at them, Harry, I look at the Ministry and the press and the public that sends you wish lists and buys your bobbleheads and forgive me, I don’t see a greater good in them. I don’t see a greater good worth the heartbreak of me losing you one day. You said you’re good at fighting. It’s true, and I bet that’s what they’re thinking too, shoving you to the front lines everyday. But you know what? They don’t think you’re good for anything else. Your hair isn’t good enough. Your clothes and manners aren’t good enough. Your speeches aren’t good enough. Your love life, your choice of who and how to fuck are definitely not good enough—”

“It wasn’t their fault that I’d dated an arse—”

“But it was their fault to interview him.” Draco banged his fist on the table. “It was their fault to print the interview on the front page to sell papers. It was their fault to ambush your best friend to get her opinion on your love life, and put that too on the front page. It was their fault to buy the papers and make you their entertainment. So, Harry, I take tremendous offence at what you said. There is an I versus them. Ask them. They’ll tell you the same thing.”

“Draco, I know you don’t like them, but they’re not to blame for everything—”

“No, of course I don’t blame them. I blame you. I blame you for giving them more than they deserve.”

“Draco, I…” Harry kept shaking his head. “I…” He covered his face.

“You said before,—” Draco crumpled at the sight of Harry speechless like that, hiding from him like that. He collapsed on his chair, too, and his drawl broke. “You said—” he swallowed, took a breath and whispered, his words trickling into the space between them far more slowly, far more gently now. “You said you didn’t choose to fight bad people. The Fates had chosen that fate for you, chosen you to live for the people you saved. But you don’t know the Fates, right? They could be anyone. So could you, for once, pretend they’re me?” His lips softened, and they smiled, a hopeless-hopeful smile. “That Draco Malfoy is your personal Fates, and now, Harry Potter is my personal Chosen One who’ll live for me. You’ve even saved me before. This make-believe isn’t that difficult, is it?”

Draco stopped speaking, finally. Harry was looking at him again, the gaze from his green eye diffused but filled with love, and Draco’s breaths caught, and calmed. Minutes passed, and a ray of sun broke through the haze in the kitchen. I exhaled, as I traced its illuminated path in the vapour and started a flame in my hand. Maybe I could start drying out the windows…

I froze when I heard Harry speak again.

“Draco, would it help if I tell everyone who you are to me?”

I clenched my fist, forgetting the fire on my palm. The flame extinguished without a sigh. _No,_ I cried. _That’s exactly what Draco doesn’t want to hear…_

But Harry couldn’t hear me. He couldn’t hear, hadn’t listened to Draco’s magic. “I can write to the _Prophet_ , tell them we’re getting married,” he continued. I turned, stiff with trepidation, to the sight of him clutching his ring, smiling a small, uncertain smile at Draco. “Hermione was right. I should have come out on my own terms. I’m sorry I…”

He was cut short. The cold, sharp daggers in Draco’s eyes sliced away his words.

I hopped down the sill, where I’d been trying to reach for the higher windows. I scrambled for the pipes, confirmed the snow patches on the weak joints were still there. The oven was off, I checked, and the flames on the stovetop were even. The icebox was running, wasn’t rumbling despite the panic lodged in my stomach. I felt so queasy, so lightheaded, like the rings were spinning again before me, bright, dark, bright, dark…

“Are you fielding questions too, with the article?” Draco asked, his voice strained and dangerously low. “Why don’t you open an owl box for all the questions people will undoubtedly ask? _Dear Harry Potter._ “

“If… “ The uncertainty in Harry’s smile grew, but he forged on. “If that’s what you want.”

“So, here’s a letter for your newly inaugurated owl box. Dear Mr Potter, I don’t care if you’re a shirt lifter, but why, of all the wizards, did you have to choose Draco Malfoy?”

“I…”

“You better answer every question. Don’t you want them happy? Like you want them safe, like you want them rich, like you want them powerful, like you want them to have an idol that caters to every fetishistic expectation they have. So answer me. Why Draco Malfoy?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know why. I don’t care why. I just want him.”

“Not good enough.” Draco stood again and leaned forward, hovering about the long forgotten teapot. The fog was blinding in the kitchen again. “You know what that scum did,” he hissed between gritted teeth. “He’s precisely one of those bad people you’re talking about.”

“What do you want, Draco?” Harry was pleading.

“You know it. You know exactly what I want. It’s what you want I’m having trouble deciphering here.“

“I told you. I want you, and I want—”

“You want to go to the _Prophet_ and ask for permission. Can you be gay. Can you be with me.”

“Is that how you see it? I’m trying, Draco, I—”

“You know what? You said you know what you want. Now I’ll tell you exactly what you don’t want. You, clearly, don’t want this.” Draco pursed his lips, chanted something, and the chain on Harry’s neck broke and the ring flew into his hands. He ripped his own from his neck, closed his palm around the two and flung them towards the stove.

One ring fell onto the floor. Its metal whistled as it spun on its edge, calling, screaming…

...for its partner, the weight of which stomped upon me and my flames. The flames shot high, high as the ceiling and a mark, darker and larger than the one the Muggles had made, burned into the white. The runes behind the ring roared to life; they grew bright and started talking, singing, recounting story after story of things, of people, of love and hate and hopes and disappointments and there was so much, too much and they all rang, pounded in my head. There was guilt too, so much guilt released as the silver softened in the flames, reached for its partner on the floor and when it couldn’t, it went for for my wrist instead, wrapped around it like a rope…

I wanted to explode. The weight, the noise, the constriction. The fog. The heavy, crying fog. I would explode.

I tugged my flames at their roots on the metal bracket, but they wouldn’t budge. The ring’s weight, its powerful magic was holding them hostage, holding me hostage. The singing and cries from the runes were turning into a chant; the words closed in on me, with the force, the insistence of what was meant to bond two wizards for life. _Till Death Would Do Us Part_ , they said, and they said again, amidst things too old and complicated for me to understand; I pleaded, I prayed for Draco to please listen, to please have the rings find each other again…

“Burn it.” But that was all I could hear him say; but all I could see were his red eyes staring at me, a thin line of tears seeping from their corners. “It isn’t needed anymore.”

I pulled on the flames again, as hard as I could. My skin peeled on my fingers. I put my wrist in my mouth and tried to tear off the silver bond with my teeth. The taste of power spread on my tongue, metallic and bitter; I could see myself moving mountains, making food from wood shaving…

All I had to do was to accept it, swallow it, the molten silver…

But no. I shook my head. I was Kate. I might be a young, useless spirit, but I would be my own. I bit hard, the silver twisted and…

The flames leapt again, tossing the ring on its other side. Darkness smeared on the ceiling once more. Harry’s eyes bore into it, one alive, one dead. His scar looked like a real knife cutting into him, deep enough to touch his lightning old wound under the new scar…

“Dark Magic, Draco?” he asked, the question barely more substantial than a sigh.

“Old magic.” Draco’s eyes remain trained on the flames. The fog, I realised, had dissipated, all of a sudden. The water had all dried up. My throat felt scorched, my eyes, burning. ”The Manor made the rings for my great grandparents.” Draco’s lips barely moved as he spoke. “Fires from house spirits can burn them. Don’t worry. They’ll make Kate stronger. She’ll fill the icebox for you. Freshen the flowers in the vase.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want the rings. I don’t want to fill the icebox myself…

“You went back to the Manor.” Harry struggled to stand, his face pale as parchment. “I’ve seen these rings before, haven’t I? On your mum and dad? You _Accio_ ’ed them from the ruins, didn’t you?” He raked his grey hair with his hand, bunched it in his fist. “Draco,” he croaked. “What makes you think they’ll work for us?”

“I went back, because I missed what I’d left behind.” Draco’s words had lost all their tone, their emotions. “Clothes more expensive than yours, encyclopaedias of grooming spells, records on how every wizarding royalty uses a napkin. I used to think, if I give up every one of these things, the world would be kind to me.” He snickered. It was mirthless. “I should’ve kept them. Kept the old magic they feared, that’d got them to call me the future Minister of Magic. They’d never stood in our way then. They’d given us Malfoys everything we wanted, short of getting on their knees.”

Slowly, Draco picked up the ring on the floor, and approached the stove with it.

“Only then was there no I versus them. If only I can have them hand you over to me like that now, too, on a silver platter. Maybe,” he turned to Harry, studied Harry for a moment, “I should’ve stayed a bad person.”

His gaze returned to the fire. He reached out, with the rings in his hands. “Kate, burn them.”

The weight of the ring on the stove eased, for just one second, at the sight of its partner. Its silver rope loosened, as it saw its object of longing, something more worthy for it to hold on to. I gritted my teeth, raised my leg and planted my foot flat against the oven. I flexed my thigh, and when the second ring dropped, I kicked with all my might and threw myself back. I heard a clear pop in my shoulder as it separated from the socket, the split of the pipe joints held together by the snow patches. I heard my flesh tearing as my flames bent and slipped out, one by one, from under the ring’s weight. I caught the freed flames in my palm, and yanked them away from the gravity that were the gas outlets, the floor and ceiling holding the gas inlets, the beams and pillars holding the floor and ceiling. My magic stretched and stretched, as it crashed and burned to its maximum—

In my pain, my delirium, I felt sawdust raining upon me. I heard the loud crack of a beam as the kitchen began to tilt. I saw Harry leap from his chair and grab the two rings from the stove, from the tall, sapphire flames dancing their wild escape. The kitchen bent further at its waist as I struggled to stay on my feet. The window cracked and the sawdust ignited, like a rain of fire that hit upon my face as I fell into the deluge on the floor—

Red, I saw red that wasn’t from Harry, from Draco, swirling into the water. Cold winds from the outside, from within blew into the storm of fire, and I knew it came from me, howling—

“You. Even you’re siding with him,” Draco howled at me. “You’re a house spirit, and you’re siding with him.”

That was the last thing I knew.

 

 


	13. Healing

I’d always known that house spirits lived and died with the house. I’d never fancied the in-between—house spirits getting sick or wounded; what it’d take for them to heal. Could they heal at all? That was so silly of me. I’d heard about the Malfoy house and their spirits. Didn’t they fall ill before the Manor collapsed?

I came to, with a clay arm attached to my left shoulder, and Brad kneeling beside me, looking like he’d shed colours from his life. His stubble was broken-leaves brown, and his apple-ly pink cheeks looked like he’d sprinkled on cinnamon powder. The strawberry-blond hair had turned taupe too. He was holding onto my earthy arm and blowing puffs of air on it.

The air was cool, no good for drying out the mud. He smiled when he saw my eyes open, and I smiled back at him. I felt stiff all over, so I stretched and looked around. Oh, Brad was a colour palette compared to me. I was grey all over—my legs, my body…my really, really thin body. The clay was the only thing on me that looked alive, and it smelled alive, too: the brown was a rich, fiery chestnut brown, and it smelled like a hearth fire with some delicious baking inside. I craned my neck and squinted at the morning light above, streaming in from…why was there a hole on the roof?

“Welcome back,” Brad said. Even his voice had gone a shade duller. He let go of my arm gently, bent down, and gave me a hug. His hand reached behind my head to smooth my hair; strands fell on my shoulders and I peered at them. They were all white; I must look like an eighty-year-old human lady. I tried to lift my new arm. It took off, but wobbled and flapped when I tried to move it.

I meant to complain, but I giggled instead. It was ticklish!

“Stop laughing. You’ll have to put in some work too.” Brad muttered as he crawled beside me, re-straightened my arm, kneaded my fingers, and patted the clay back in place. His signature smile, small and cautious, stayed on his lips as he attended to me, but his eyes had brightened. The flecks of gold in his irises shone in the sun.

“Miss you,” I said, after my giggles subsided. I twisted my neck, following him with my eyes as he nursed the different parts of my arm.

“Miss you too,” he said quietly when he was done, the cinnamon on his face a shade darker. Oh, he was blushing. He sat up on his knees, folded his fingers into a bud, and opened his palm. I remembered the small fire that’d used to spring from it, lighting up his smug smile when he’d shown it to me. Now, the fire was still there, but it was ash grey.

“It hasn’t been working well.” His blush turned deeper. “That’s what I meant…you’ll have to put in some work. I’m sorry, I couldn’t fire your arm dry.”

I watched him shuffle on his knees and remembered how much I loved him, my Himly spirit. “It’s okay,” I said to him. “I’ll need to exercise my fire magic anyway, after such a long nap.” I patted the wood beside me, smooth and free of shaving. “Could you lie down with me? I want to see you.”

He nodded. Soon, we lay together under the warmth of the sun—April sun, I’d be told—his hands clasping my good one, our noses almost touching. “Where did you get the clay?”

He tilted his head up towards the hole, the light above us. “Harry,” he said.

 

*~*~*~*

The story after that coldest day of winter was as much as Brad could gather, which wasn’t much. The bedroom had been a quiet, quiet place. Not only because Draco hadn’t been there since, but because, well, I’d destroyed that side of the cottage. The good thing though, Brad said, squeezing my hand, was that with a big hole in the bedroom floor and the cottage half-toppled, he could watch the kitchen downstairs too and overhear a few words. George had come by to pick up Draco’s things the next day: the T-shirts and jeans, the old, yellowed nightshirt, the hair ties. The green toothbrush.

 _Things aren’t o…over until he wants the chickens back,_ he’d said. _Don’t let him take…take his chickens._

 _Why are you rooting for me?_ Harry had asked. He’d slept in fits and starts in the kitchen all night, calling Draco’s name, calling mine. The knife scar had carved deeper into his drained, sunken face.

George pressed his palm against the rickety bed, which’d been shoved to one side to stay clear of the hole. He shook the shelves Draco had trashed and fixed, each still missing a leg or three. He rapped on the bedside table, still hollow on one side. The furniture swayed and creaked but stood straighter, firmer afterwards. His wind magic lifted him as he jumped across the hole in the floor.

 _Draco l…lost his temper for you_ , he said to Harry, after another jump. _He on…only loses his temper for you._

 _I haven’t been fair to him. I tried, but…_ Harry shook his head.

_You…you’ve been fair enough. He know…knows it._

_Then why…_

_You’re the big…biggest gamble he’s ev…ever made._ George gave the window a push; a breeze swung the frame, and a screw popped out. George caught the screw with a swipe of his hand. _He put his chick…chickens here. He put his ma…magic here. You’re living in…in his magic, in the M…Manor he’s rebuilding._

_I don’t understand._

_I know. I…_ George patted himself on his chest. _Pureblood too. I un…understand. In old magic, our ma…magic is our home. Our home is o…our magic. A home that doesn’t pro…protect is an insult to its M…Master. You got h…hurt. It hurts Dra… Draco._

_I…_

_Draco for…forgot things too. Bind…binding magic fails when th…things are shaky. Rings w…work when wearers can m…move about and choose. People don’t m…move about much when the g…ground shakes._

Harry looked confused but determined. _What should I do?_

 _I…I told him, your job is your ch…choice. But th…this place,_ George looked around the room again, smiling. _This place needs con…construction._

_Construction? You mean, patching this hole?_

_I mean, like b…beams, pillars._ George’s smile persevered. _Draco’s magic, Kate’s and B…Brad’s are old magic. This place isn’t b…built for that. It’ll get holes again if th…that isn’t fixed._

Harry stared at him, mouth agape.

 _People think old…old magic is dark. It isn’t. It only likes to hold…hold on to things. Hor…horcrux magic is old. But the pro…protection of your aunt’s house, from your mum, was old ma…magic too. Old magic is no good an…anymore because mo…modern wizards t…toss away everything, like Mug…Muggles do. Old magic c…can’t settle like that. It gets fei…feisty. This hole…_ George nodded at the centre of the bedroom _. I bet the o…old magic from Draco’s r…rings fought with K…Kate’s._

 _How…how do you know?_ Harry stuttered as well, overcome by astonishment.

George smiled wider. _The Goyles are build…builders. I build with eg…eggs and flour, but my grand…grandparents used stone and b…bricks. They built the Malfoy Man…Manor, did main…maintenance on it until our family bus…business failed. I was a ba…baby. No one wants a prop…proper Wizarding home anymore._

_I’m sorry._

_Don’t be._ George meant it too. He caught Harry’s arm when a rogue floorboard caught Harry’s trainer. _I like build…building pastries. Ev…everyone wants one. But I know some…some things about Dra…Draco’s magic. What it needs to set…settle._

_What should I do? How should I start?_

_The found…found…_ George frowned and gestured with his big hands a square on the floor.

 _Foundation,_ Harry finished for him in a whisper, still in awe.

George nodded. _The found…foundation is weak. Really o…old magic like Draco’s only hold…holds on to nice, so…solid things._

_You mean, like marble? Some kind of expensive wood?_

George shook his head. _De…dependable things. Old magic is heav…heavy magic, it needs to know it won’t b…break the thing it set…settles on. Kate and Brad are y…young. This place wasn’t main...maintained for years. Your his…history with Draco is shake…shaky._

 _It matters._ Harry closed his eyes. It wasn’t a question.

George shrugged and smiled again, wrapping his arm around Harry shoulder. _Fixable if you put in a lit…little more work._

That explained the opening in the roof. The construction had gone on since, Brad told me. Harry had foregone his upcoming sabbatical to extend his medical leave; in return, the Ministry had sent him a fruit basket ( _The bananas had spots_ , Brad recalled, making a face). The work had started with the foundation, as George had suggested, and even in the bedroom, Brad could feel the shudders as Harry pulled out the old wood, creaking and cracking under the cottage’s feet…

Yes, Harry had done most of the labour. It was imperative, George said apologetically over the treacle tarts he’d brought over, if the intent was to make the cottage home for Draco, and home for Harry too. Harry might have fallen asleep while George had talked, from exhaustion, from struggling to recover while he’d had this task upon his shoulders.

The struggle hadn’t really ended.

_You see, Kate. About that._

_About Harry…_

_There’s something about Harry you should know…_

Brad hesitated. Right at that moment, Harry appeared in the hole in the roof. He looked down, the spring sunshine as his backdrop before he jumped through the hole with a clean leap, landing less than a metre away from Brad and I.

The knife scar was gone. I never thought I’d be delighted to see the lightning bolt on his forehead, but here I was, pumping my good fist and letting out a little _whoop_ of cheer. The spark in his eyes was back to normal, though one remained grey—Draco grey, my mind supplied as it did a little jig. His hair was an impossible mess of black again, speckled brown with wood dust, and it was perfect for his old T-shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and those were perfect for the two tan and very well-toned biceps they were showing off.

 _“_ Hunk, _”_ I cooed, grinning as Brad rolled his eyes.

Harry hummed a song as he walked to the back of the attic, his steps light as the spring breeze on our skin. Clangs of metal against metal later, he returned with a few things I didn’t recognise, each with a brightly coloured handle and a silver head of a strange shape. Hanging around his neck was Alfred’s camera, and he was wearing a strange, belt-like thing too, marking a big, black “H” on his back and his chest. He pushed a ladder to the hole and climbed out of sight again.

“The thing is, Kate,” Brad said lightly, smoothing my hair behind my ears, clearing my hearing for his words. “Harry…kind of lost his magic.”

What? My eyes were wide as I stared at Brad.

Brad’s hand lingered absentmindedly on my arm. “He used it up, I think…” He trailed off, peering at me from under his eyelashes.

“On the foundation?” I asked. “The beams? The pillars? Getting himself better?” I recognised the look, the way Brad avoided my eyes. My voice got shakier at every question.

“On the kitchen.” Brad confirmed my foreboding, his voice even lower.

 

*~*~*~*

Harry had redone everything. He’d not only put in new beams and pillars, but also refitted the pipes, rewired the appliances, and rerouted the gas lines. The cabinets and counters Draco had designed and remade, he’d taken them apart, piece by piece, just so he could replace the metal tubes, secure the joints, and clean up the wood shaving behind and below them. Then he’d put everything back in place again. The icebox made perfect ice cubes that no longer rumbled in its belly; the tap was charmed to the lever kind that couldn’t be overtwisted. Even the toaster, he’d spelled an extra slot to replace the one missing from Draco’s thieving ways…

 _Why?_ George had asked.

_I stole from Kate the things she needed to grow. I hadn’t taken care of the kitchen until Draco came and tried to take care of it for me._

_You’re try…trying to make it up to Kate._

Harry had looked up. _I’ll never be able to make it up to her._

That night, Harry had crawled back to the bedroom, exhausted as usual. But insomnia had seeped in anyway, despite Brad’s best efforts to give the curtains a rhythmic sway, to let in the breeze with its hint of spring. Harry tossed and turned…

“He called for me,” Brad said. “He asked where you were, why you weren’t answering to him. He thought you were angry.”

Angry?

“He could have taken the ring.”

“But…” _His job,_ I’d wanted to say. I’d wanted to say, I’d wanted Harry to keep his job. I’d wanted him to choose his own life. Memories of that terrifying proposal flooded my head: the tea, the fog, the rings, the flames and raining sawdust. Harry, too weak to argue; Draco, pushing, denying Harry of his choice. It was unfair, like Harry had said, a blackmail…

But then, other scenes from the kitchen ignited in my memory, too. The tears on the speeches, the dittany on the wounds; the Muggle takeaways and yoghurt cups; the _come-hole_ sex with a nobody…

That life hadn’t been Harry’s choice, either, Draco had argued. That life had been the one _they_ had chosen for Harry to live. _They_ , who’d taken advantage of Harry, who’d hated Draco…

And Harry had been miserable for it. Shouldn’t I root for Draco to stake a claim on Harry, too? Hadn’t Harry waited for Draco to choose him, to choose this cottage to settle because he’d find it sweeter if Draco made the choices? He’d never answered Draco’s question that night: what if Draco hadn’t chosen him, hadn’t chosen this place? Would he have just let Draco go?

What if he’d let Draco go?

“I didn’t want Harry to take the ring.” I heard my voice amidst the memories. “I wanted Harry to give Draco a ring.”

Yes, that was what I wanted. I wanted him to choose Draco.

Brad looked at me, confused. I smiled at the sun above our heads. Yes, that was exactly what I wanted. But Harry had already blast a hole in Draco’s heart...

I lost my smile. I clung on to my hope.

“What did you say to Harry then?” I asked Brad.

“I…” Brad fidgeted. His knees folded against his chest.

“What is it?” I snuggled closer and mirrored his foetal position, our knees touching. I lifted my good hand and touched his hair. It was straighter, thinner than I remembered. I watched his discoloured face, his eyes avoiding mine. What had he done?

“Doesn’t matter, really.” He faked a smile. “It’s over now.”

“Brad…”

He heard me. I wouldn’t let this issue drop. “I…” He took a breath. “I showed myself in his dreams.”

My fingers caught themselves in a tangle of his hair. “You…” I searched his eyes—his soft, warm eyes trained on me now, confirming…

He nodded. Yes, I didn’t hear wrong.

I gasped. That was the worst offence house spirits could make, the worst risk we could put on our own lives. It was one thing to be clumsy and careless and leave hints of our presence, like I had often done; it was another thing to make our face known and to do so, no less, by cornering the house owner in a setting that gave him no choice but to face us. We were once meant to be spies; our magic had encoded us to perish if we’d blown our covers…

I cupped Brad’s face with my good hand and brushed the lost hue on his cheek. “Is that why…?”

“You were already so grey, so thin, lying on the beam.” He leaned into my hand, as naturally as I’d always found myself in his arms. “When it got dark here after sunset, I couldn’t even see you anymore. I reckon…” He swallowed and looked at me. “I reckon, at worst, we go together. It makes sense, doesn’t it? We already came together.”

He smiled a little sheepishly, or so I thought. I couldn’t see clearly with the tears in my eyes. I nodded fiercely. _Yes, it makes sense. It makes loads of sense._

_I would've done the same for you._

“No crying.” He wiped my eyes for me. “Your arm still needs to dry.”

I smiled at him and sniffled. “Did you scare Harry?”

No, Brad hadn’t scared Harry at all. And Brad had known he wouldn’t, having seen Harry’s nightmares what had seemed ages ago. He’d told Harry he’d got to speak fast because of the spirit’s code of honour, because speaking to Harry would take away his colours, then his life. He’d told Harry about me, lying there unconscious, my arm missing.

 _What can I do?_ Harry had asked, without missing a beat. That moment, Brad would admit much later, even he’d found Harry rather dashing.

Brad hadn’t had a clue. He’d heard about clay, of course. Hadn’t the first house spirit been sculpted from it, like the first humans? But it’d been more than clay. The witch had blended in a feather of a domesticated phoenix…

Brad had choked in dismay as he’d listened to his own words. Domesticated phoenix? It was only a legend. It had to be.

 _I have a feather like that_ , Harry had replied, after a moment of thought.

“But domesticated phoenixes aren’t real!” I exclaimed, echoing Brad’s thought at the time. Or whatever he’d been capable of thinking at the time, anyway. He’d been so exhausted from the few minutes he’d spent in Harry’s head, he’d collapsed beside me and slept through the day.

When he’d opened his eyes to the moonlight, a pile of clay had been waiting in the attic beside me, smelling of holly trees and ashes. Harry hadn’t shown any magic after that.

I gave my new arm a tug. “When did that happen?” I whispered.

Three days ago.

“Does Draco know?”

No. Draco didn’t know.

Draco hadn’t been here in the cottage at all.

Only crates from Eltanin Harvests had continued to show up—twice a week, still filled to the brim with the freshest, prettiest produce.

But there had been additions in the delivery.

A pot of baby cactus had peeked out from a crate. _M…Mr Prickly,_ George had said, smiling wide at the green, pointy little thing on his palm. _Draco use…used to keep one at Hog…Hogwarts. We knew to not t…touch the things around it. They were h…his._ _Pans gave him the f…first one. N…named it too._ His face had fallen, before he’d looked at Harry and smiled again. _Things are def…definitely not over between y…you and Draco._

Meanwhile, the strawberries had come on a bed of what had looked like moulded twigs and dead worms. George had held the herb to his nose and inhaled deeply, his eyes closed, and told Harry to be sure to include it in his cooking because it was among the best of ancient healing herbs, no longer sold in apothecaries because it was notoriously tricky to grow. George had even showed Harry, Ron, and Hermione how to bake tiny croissants with it, which Harry would eat by the palmful for snacks. Malfoy recipe, he’d told the trio. Narcissa had sent Draco a care package of these every week back when there’d been something about a Hippogriff. George had remembered, from all those years ago, what they’d looked, smelled, and tasted like.

 _Does Draco know you’re helping me?_ Harry had asked.

George had answered by stuffing his mouth with three croissants at once. Ron had had to heal his burnt tongue afterwards and kick Hermione when she’d tried to ask the same question again.

The cottage had been calling Draco, George had reassured Harry every visit, and the call had been getting stronger with each beam Harry had put in, with each pillar he’d stood on the new foundation—the new foundation made of the toughest rocks. Draco had been restless, George had said, Apparating to the farm late at night to work his edge off. The greenhouse had been renovated, and he’d built a cottage garden beside the barn and brought back hellebores to George’s flat by the armful. _He’ll be back soon_ , George had said, filling the vase on the counter with the same flowers in a slate purple, subdued and stunning. _Keep the wards o…open for him. Take good care of his chick…chickens._

But Brad hadn’t been sure if he should believe in George, and from the way Harry had nodded to George with a tight smile, as the hole had finally closed between the bedroom and the kitchen, Harry hadn’t been sure, either.

“But Harry hadn’t gone to look for Draco. He’d only been waiting for him,” I said.

Brad nodded.

 

*~*~*~*

Harry had been waiting for more than Draco.

Apparently, something about Muggle tools and safety harnesses—the “H” belt—was very attention worthy, especially among witches. On the fourth day Harry had lost his magic, a photo of him pottering around on the roof appeared on the _Prophet_ ’s gossip pages. _HUNK!!_ The title exclaimed.

I dashed along the new beams to tell Brad about it. The photo, and the title. _I called it_. I preened.

He glowered.

On the fifth day, the same photo was on the front page, magnified so much that everything looked grainy. It’d gained a yellowish tint too, much like the photos Draco had rescued out of Alfred’s camera.

Scoop after scoop, Harry sipped the breakfast porridge on his spoon, his green and grey eyes trained on the print. His joggers were showing their wear, their hem creased and curled, while his T-shirt sported stubborn stains from when he’d worn it to thatch the roof. He’d dripped some porridge on the collar, and offhandedly wiped it off with his fingers.

 _Magic Lost???_ The headline screamed.

 _Ministry denies allegations_! hissed the finer print next row.

Harry didn’t dwell much longer on the article, or the special issue of the _Prophet_ that somersaulted its way through the window, which he’d left open, for once. He found the sports page and started reading about Quidditch. He picked up his self-fill quill and built a fantasy team in his notebook, surrounded by sketches of the different Quidditch moves. I knew nothing about the dashes and feints, but I loved everything Harry was putting on the parchment. One of the players I could have sworn was Draco, pointy everywhere but for his soft mouth; he’d crashed on the grass with flying limbs and “@#%@#%!!” scrawled on his side. Another player, wearing a pair of huge, comically round spectacles, held up the Snitch beside him. Harry chuckled at his own work.

He scrubbed the pots and pans with a scouring pad. He dusted the cabinets and cleaned the floor with a mop. He made tea.

As time ticked by—the second hand hopping with extra zeal to compensate for its colleagues, which were stuck at five o’clock again—I grew more and more antsy. Harry looked calm and content, as he’d been since I’d woken, but his magic, his magic…

It wasn’t _not_ there.

It was licking at mine. Meek, little licks, like a baby Kneazle’s lapping on cream. I would have missed it if my clay arm wasn’t still a little new, a little raw, a little _his_.

I couldn’t help myself any longer. I hopped off the icebox and approached the stove. How would he react to me? I hadn’t made myself known for months. The last few days, I’d been busy baking dry my new appendage, the fires on my palm nowhere near as bright, as stable as before.

I stared at the burner bracket in front of me. Lighting a flame here would probably be a challenge too. I’d have to concentrate, will it to happen in my head. Oh, hadn’t Harry put in a new gas line too? I closed my eyes, traced it with my intention, listened for my thoughts along its black steel…

_Whoosh!_

I opened my eyes to a fiery flower, its petals blue and gold. Each was perfectly shaped, and so steady—none of the flickering and flaring on my palm. The delicate curls of light at the petal tips beckoned me. I unfurled a petal with a finger and it rolled back in place, after a curious little twist—

“Hey,” greeted Harry, softly.

I turned to him, to his smile. Water welled in my eyes again; how could I be so utterly ridiculous like this? But what could I say to him, even if I could talk him? Would _Thank you_ ever suffice for someone who’d saved you? Saved your home?

I wiggled the flame, trying to relay a message with it. It moved, far more gracefully than my wiggling. I tugged at it, and it lengthened. Then, with a light “pop”, it detached from the gas jet and folded into a tiny sphere of light. My mouth opened; my concentration broke and the sphere sank, gently back onto the stovetop, where it dissipated into sparks.

So pretty.

I lit a new flame, then another, and another. I popped them out, practised moving them around in the air while Harry watched me, his cup of tea nursed between his palms. When I almost dropped one, that almost indistinguishable lick of magic was back again, nudging the sphere back within my reach.

I moved the tiny spheres of flames into the shape of a heart. It was a bit sketchy; I was getting tired with the concentration and—

“You’re welcome,” Harry answered lightly, smiling again. The sun was sinking lower outside the window, bathing the kitchen with its late afternoon glow. His injured eye was looking eerier by the minute, like Draco’s eyes had turned in the morning, when the grey irises had been washed out by the light of dawn.

Harry was waiting.

I hoped, half-heartedly, that Draco was the subject of his wait; I hoped, wholeheartedly, that Draco would barge into the kitchen right now, berate Harry and himself for being idiots, before they’d make a delicious meal out of the foods in the icebox, out of each other…

But it wouldn’t happen, I knew. Draco had enough resolve—or was it pride?—to stay away since he’d left the cottage two months ago. Today was no different than the other days. If he could leave Harry while Harry had still nursed that scar, that dull, deathly eye on his face, what was it to him if Harry could no longer use his magic? Harry had grown up Muggle, after all.

I sighed and went back to my slouching and watching. This time, under the sink.

At one of the two minutes in the day when the clock was accurate, an owl swooped into the kitchen, carrying a box many times larger than itself. The wrapping paper was silver and gold, embossed with the insignia of the Ministry of Magic.

The owl stuck its foot out, its eyes locked at the bowl of owl treats outside the window. It left as brusquely as it came; I could soon hear—or so I thought—the greedy _tap, tap, tap_ from its pecking, the shower of treats raining on the ground as it dug into the bowl…

Harry sucked on his finger where the owl had scratched.

It was just so quiet in the cottage. Too quiet. Harry put his cup and saucer into the sink, so lightly that neither the china nor the porcelain made a clink. His magic had stopped licking on me, and a chill—of the evening, of April—had set in. I shuddered as he found the tail of the ribbon and pulled.

The box opened to the view of yet another beautifully tailored robe, this time, in an earthy umber. Harry unfolded it and held it up, gave it a light fling to smooth out the wrinkles. His eyes, bright under those trendy spectacles he’d always worn, followed the neat column of Celtic button knots from the collar down to the hem, where a gold thread lined the skirt of the robe. Just like the line of poop on the robe Draco had worn to St Mungo’s, I thought, and I wondered if Harry had thought of the same thing too. His lips curved into his small, sad smile, and he closed his eyes for a moment too long before he gathered the robe, rested it on the back of a chair.

A stack of designer shirts and trousers emerged from the box. Then, a jungle of potion bottles, in every colour imaginable. Harry stood them all on the table in a neat formation, like soldiers.

I was intrigued. They did look like real soldiers from afar. I came out of hiding again and tiptoed to the table. Oh, that explained it—on each label, covering the bottle from cap to the base, was a full body portrait of a man in military regalia. Well, I looked more closely, more like the knights on the covers of books Elaine had used to read, that I’d loved to read behind her shoulders. Their armours were shining, and they preened, swaying not his sword but their head of hair. _Look your best for the triumphant homecoming!_ exclaimed one bottle at its waist. _Win a battle AND a witch!_ promised the other at its hips.

I wrinkled my nose at them; they looked so _useless_. They huffed, brandished their sword at me…

Behind them, the real soldier—Harry—saw none of their valour as he rummaged deeper into the box. A pair of Oxfords had appeared and he’d sat them on the floor, where dragonhide boots soon kept it company. The box was almost empty. I could tell from the way it jumped, the hollow noises it made, as Harry’s searching head and hands sunk lower and lower into it. I stood, ignoring the now infighting soldier-knights too, and peered inside the box beside Harry, too curious to wait to see what else would emerge. A stack of parchment came to view. My heart skipped, and Harry’s eyes brightened too. He pulled it out, so quickly that a page flew out of his hands, and he began to flip through the parchment with the same hopefulness. Not for long, though. His expression, his eyes soon dimmed again. I chased the fluttering page in the air—my nerves weren’t helping it to settle at all—and read the bold text when it’d finally landed by the threshold.

 _Updated Instructions on Hair Potion Use_ : _Wash, Dry, Style._

_Please read carefully._

At the table, Harry slapped down the parchment. He picked up the now-empty box, upended it and shook it, then put it back upright on the table and stared at it. His eyes brightened again at a thought, and he felt between, then under the layer of squishy pouches lining the box, each deflating, releasing air and magic when his palm rested upon it.

I didn’t notice the breath he was holding, or the breath I was holding, until his hand froze abruptly. He swept his hand around to defeat the last of the pouches.

A tiny box soon sat on his palm. His chest heaved as he blinked at it; my chest, my eyes did the same thing too. This box was in bland, brown cardboard—no shiny gift-wrap, no ribbons, not even a piece of spellotape. Harry bit on his lip, grabbed the two sides of the cover and it slid upward, languidly.

Sitting inside this box was a small plastic container, shiny and cheerfully coloured like the Muggle things Harry had had. There wasn’t even a squishy pouch to hold it in place; it slipped and bumped against the cardboard with every tilt of Harry’s hand. Its shape was rather odd: two round pill boxes, each the size of a sickle, connected by a flimsy, bendable bridge. One pill box was pastel pink with the letter L etched on it. The other was pastel green, with the letter _R._ The bridge was white and had no letters.

I was perplexed, but Harry seemed to recognise the container, and not in a happy way. His frown deepened, and the lively green in his right eye ignited while the left, grey one lost its last trace of colour in the evening sun.

He unscrewed the pink pill box. Swimming inside, in a pool of liquid, was a curved piece of glass, round, roughly the size of an Every Flavour Bean, tinted green but for a small hole at the centre. Harry swayed the container in his hand, and the glass, the liquid swayed with it, just as they should. Harry’s frown deepened even more. With shaking fingers, Harry unscrewed the green pill box too. There was no glass, no liquid in this one.

For minutes, Harry’s gaze remained fixed at the pill boxes, one with the glass and the liquid, one without. His lips quivered, though no sound came from them. Something had gone horribly wrong. I took a breath, stood opposite to Harry and dipped my finger into the liquid in the pink pill box. It didn’t yield to me, as it shouldn’t, but it felt like good, old water. I snatched my hand back when, the next moment, Harry found the two caps and screwed tight both pill boxes, as if they were holding something sinister, like phantoms. The bridge twisted with the force of his turns.

He fell into a chair, the container clutched in his fist. Silence and stillness filled the kitchen once more, until he pulled the two boxes close to him and started to rummage inside again. The flap of the boxes beat like wings as he shook them; he drummed on the cardboard as he patted around for hidden compartments. But there was nothing, nothing left inside. He deflated, and threw them on the floor.

Whatever he was waiting, wishing for, it wasn’t in there.

I knelt in front of his chair and watched his face, his lost expression. I felt so sorry for him. I felt like crying for him, but I didn’t know why.

He dipped his head, and his eyes connected with mine. My clay palm felt a lick of magic.

“I’m here,” I whispered to him.

He couldn’t have heard me, but his magic could. I felt another lick.

He put the container on the table and stared at it again. He unscrewed the pink pill box once more, dipped a finger into the liquid. What he did next terrified me. He yanked off his spectacles, held the curved glass on the finger tip and brought it to his eyeball. I let out a gasp; I thought he was about to stab himself in the eye. But he tilted his head back, pulled his eyelids open and then…

The glass was gone. I looked around for it, on his fingertip and on his lap. I patted my hands on the floor around me. But I couldn’t see it anywhere. Then I looked at him.

 _Oh_.

His grey iris—his Draco iris—was gone. In its place was the green one he’d used to have, except…

There was no life in it. The colour was too bright, like it’d been painted on the last minute for theatre. It looked cheap, fake like the strawberries and peaches dancing so happily on the Muggle yoghurt cups, when not a piece of fruit could be found inside.

“How do I look?” he whispered.

I realised he was talking to me.

I wanted to tell him I hated it. I wanted to gesture _ugly_ with the spheres of flame and hang them on every wall so he couldn’t miss the message. I wanted to gesture _Take it off! Take it off!_

_I want my Draco eye back._

But I didn’t have the skills, or the time for that. I didn’t want to be by the oven, either. I just wanted to stay close to Harry, just like this. I put my clay hand on his knee and imagined he could feel it, imagined his reflexive little kick was him finding comfort in my presence, my magic…

Was that why Brad had wanted so much to be a human?

“Do you think I look good enough for them now?” he asked, smiling a sad smile, and that was the last thing he would say for hours. The kitchen went dark as the skies did outside, and all I could see was his eye with the green glass turning redder and redder, tears dripping down from it as it blinked. The rest of him didn’t appear to be crying though. The rest of him didn’t appear to be doing anything. He was just sitting there, clutching the plastic container in his fist, the faint, sad smile he’d shown me still frozen on his lips.

The seconds ticked on. They became minutes, hours I could no longer keep track of...

I was too worried. Frustrated. Where were Hermione and Ron? George? Andromeda? Anyone, really? Harry had never reached out to them, I remembered, but then, how could they not reach out for him _now_ , when Harry was on the front page of the newspaper? Because it’d happened all the time? Because they knew, somehow, that Harry was all right?? Like those Ministry people who were so sure Harry was fine, when Harry hadn’t been back to work, when they hadn’t even sent him an owl? The kitchen was turning cold—early spring was no time to leave the window open after sunset—and I was powerless to do anything about it. All I could do was to light every fire in the kitchen, ask Brad to stay by my side on a beam and curl up in his arms; All I could do was to watch on, wait for someone to save Harry, while Brad hummed the songs that’d used to soothe me when I’d been a child.

It was long after sunset when the house was finally disturbed. The footsteps were quiet, slow, and measured as they reached the threshold of the kitchen. Couldn’t be a burglar then, I thought, miserably, or anyone who cared.

The voice echoed through before I could see its owner. I sat up, so abruptly that Brad choked on his tune. How could I miss a drawl so much? How could a drawl, meant to be insufferable and cutting, sound so, so soft?

“If I’d come here any earlier, Potter, I would have killed you.”

Draco appeared in my kitchen, finally. There he was, skinny as a wand, his hands in his jeans pocket and an old jumper hanging on his shoulders. _Vince’s Bakery_ , it said, bright yellow on black.

Harry barely looked up. He raised an arm slowly, the pillbox container falling onto his lap as his hand inched onto the table. He nudged the closest potion bottle with the edge of his palm, and it toppled over, knocking down the one before it, which knocked down the one before that. Soon, the soldier-knights closest to the table’s edge were taking a dive onto the floor. Glasses crashed, colours splattered and bled into each other. The Valiant Ones fought to crawl to the top of the shards, pushing the losers into the deluge…

“Being melodramatic here, aren’t we?” Draco asked, crossing the kitchen. There was no bite in his words though, but also, less concern and infinitely more calm than I’d expected. His stride was wide and sure, and the old stains on his trainers were soon painted green and purple and blue…

I hopped off the beam I’d been sitting on with Brad, tiptoed to the corner where the vase sat, the hellebores in it still blooming.

Without any more words from Draco, without any more acknowledgement from Harry, who’d remained lost in his thoughts, his disappointment, Draco started cleaning. He bowed to pick up the large box on the floor, put the toppled but yet to be broken potion bottles inside. Next, he threw in the shoes. The stack of trousers followed—he’d dropped them on the floor first, and after they’d soaked up the potions, shrouded the drowned bodies of the soldier-knights, he threw those into the box too. The stack of parchment was next. Draco scoffed at the instructions before scattering them to join the soiled rags of trousers.

The shirts remained on the table. Draco put down the box, gathered them all and knelt on the floor, in front of Harry. He unfolded the shirts then, one by one, laying them down carefully on the tiles such that they overlapped.

I watched him, caressing the hellebore petals in my hands, wondering what the blanket of shirts, and more importantly, who the care were intended for. The floor was still a mess with its swirls of colours, Harry was a mess too, and I…I looked down, at my still grey, still emaciated body—yes, I was no less a mess than Harry and the kitchen. I put down the vase with enough water to make scented steam; I shouldn’t make my presence known, I decided. Draco wouldn’t want to see me, not with what I had...what I hadn’t done with the rings. I’d rejected him that day too, like Harry had, by refusing his offer of magic…

But then, Draco began to clean up the broken glass on the floor. His hands were so gentle as they picked up the shards, as they padded the tiles and protected them from the sharp corners while he transferred the broken pieces onto the blanket of shirts. I couldn’t even feel a scratch…

No, I thought, blinking away the burn in my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry.

“Granger’s still caught by the vultures at the Ministry?” Draco whispered his question, as he lay to rest the last, particularly cracked piece of glass onto a navy blue dress shirt.

Hermione’s name finally shook Harry out of his reverie. “What about Hermione?”

The cracked glass shattered into dust, with a burst of twinkling in the flame light but not a sound. Draco looked up, and met Harry’s eyes. He hadn’t used his magic at all, I realised. I looked behind him, his wand wasn’t in his jeans pocket, either. But his water magic was strong inside him, a hypnotic advance and retreat, like waves under the moonlight. “She’s fielding questions for you in the atrium. The usual.” His words were like the waves too, prodding and backing off, waiting for Harry to respond. He folded up the shirt-blanket carefully, the glass pieces buried inside, and tied a knot with the sleeves. “Someone was shouting the news on _Sonorus_ outside my Diagon warehouse. Reckon I’ll get to read it here. Two special editions today for the Golden Trio.”

Harry said nothing. Draco put the package of glass into the box and stood, set the box on the table with a _thump_ , and sighed. “If your turning Squib in one day is what Gryffindors call a prank, this is a good time to tell me.” He picked up the small box and topped the big box off with it, his face and expression lost in the shadows as he surveyed the void under its cover. “It’s enough humiliation for me to show up here again, uninvited.”

“It’s not a prank.”

Draco steadied the box on the table and shoved his hands into his pockets again. His eyes were trained at the gold and silver print of the wrapping paper, but his ears were trained at Harry, listening, waiting. The waves in his magic receded.

“I leaked the photo,” Harry submitted, after a long while. “Hermione helped.”

“The roof photo.” Draco didn’t look at Harry.

“I took it myself. Alfred’s camera.”

“Why? If you want to be on the gossip pages—”

“I wanted to know if what you said is true.”

“What did I say?”

“That they don’t care.”

Draco stiffened. The wave in his magic surged and crashed against something. No, I tilted my ear and listened harder, that was the pounding from his heart. Still, he refused to look at Harry. “How does…whatever you’re doing accomplish that?”

“I’m useless at fighting without magic.”

“And?”

“If they need me to fight bad people, they’ll do something, right?” Harry was still looking down at his lap. He let out a chuckle. “Try to fix me? Kidnap me to St Mungo’s, if I refuse to go myself?” He shook his head. “I thought…I was sure…I told Hermione that…they’ve got to say something, at least, right? And they always deliver the first set of clothes to me on April fifth. The box is big enough to hold a letter…a note, if just to ask how I’m doing.”

Draco blinked as he put the pieces together. Slowly, he turned towards Harry. “They didn’t ask,” he said.

“I’m pathetic.” Harry let out another chuckle, turned and looked at the box, the Ministry emblem marred with Draco’s rainbowy handprints. He squeezed his shoulders and rubbed his hands together. “I thought I was more important than I really was.” He took a breath. “I was so daft. I’ve let the medals, the bobbleheads get to me…”

Draco only looked more alarmed. “They haven’t sent someone to check on you?”

Harry answered with another deep breath and looked up then. His real eye brightened, and a smile tugged on his lips. “I don’t care anymore. Draco, I’m really happy to see you here. I’m sorry…”

“But they claimed you’re all right. Harry, you…” Draco fell on his knees in front of Harry again, and cupped Harry’s face with his hands. “Your magic isn’t really—”

“Lost it a few days ago,” Harry replied softly, and at Draco’s terrified, darkening expression, added hastily. "Hermione doesn’t know that. She thought I was playacting. She thought it was a good idea for me to find out—”

“But it’s here,” Draco insisted, his fingers digging into Harry’s skin, his words cutting with concern. “I walked into this cottage and I could feel it. Your magic. Your magic is everywhere. What makes you think—”

“I gave it away.”

“You gave it away?”

Harry nodded.

“Who did you give it to?”

“Kate.”

Draco missed a beat, confused. Then, his eyes widened. “Kitchen Kate?”

“She…” Harry hesitated, and I knew, he wouldn’t mention the rings. “She got really sick. My magic could help.”

“What did you do?” Draco’s hands had slipped off Harry’s face; they were clenching Harry at the arms and his voice was as tight as the grip, his tone was rough and high-pitched. His magic, his heartbeat were pounding hard against Harry, trying to elicit a response—

“I was dreaming.”

“You were dreaming?”

“Yeah, I was dreaming, and Brad came to me.” But the pounding only shoved Harry away from the kitchen, from Draco again. His gaze drifted afar. “He told me about Kate, how I could help.”

“Dreams aren’t real.”

“I don’t know,” Harry whispered, talking more to himself than to anyone else. “I just thought…I just dreamt,“ a smile, impossibly distant too, tugged on his lips, “after Brad left my dream, I lay there and I thought, I dreamt, how nice it’d be if you and I were like him and Kate. Or like Alfred and Elaine. We’d still be in love, but no one would know about us. There’d be no _they_ , no arseholes who’d deserve the turnip treatment, no hearts and Howlers, no funding agencies hoarding the Galleons for fighting bad people. Heck, there wouldn’t even be bad people.” His faraway smile turned brighter, but even more distant. “You and I, Draco, we’d just live here with the chickens and the Chickens. We’d make breakfast and dinner together. We’d fight. We’d make up. We’d throw things at each other. We’d have great makeup sex. I kept asking,” Harry pulled himself back into reality then, his eyes searching Draco’s as he whispered, “what would I give to live a life like that.”

Draco only turned paler at each _would._ He shook Harry so hard that his own hair tie came off, his blond fringe cascading down onto his forehead. “You asked? Who did you ask?”

“Nobody.” Harry gave his head a small shake. He looked at Draco, curiosity in his eyes as though it was unfathomable why Draco couldn’t follow him. “I said, I was dreaming. There was nobody but myself in the dream. But I got my answer.” He smiled again. “My magic was gone the next morning. I burned my wand and it healed her…healed Kate.”

“You burned your wand,” Draco repeated with a rasp.

“Brad told me, domestic phoenix feather is medicine to the house spirits. To me, it was a connection to Voldemort. They had better use of the feather than I do.”

“You…” A strange noise emitted from Draco’s throat.

“Draco.” Harry reached for Draco’s fringe, slipped a finger along its length. “Do you know? Your wand worked better for me than my own after the war. Almost didn’t owl it back to you.”

Draco’s lips trembled. “What else did you do?” he managed.

“Nothing.”

“Harry, you…” Draco inhaled and shook his head violently until his words returned to him. “You’ve got to be honest about this. What else did you do? Anything else that could make you lose your magic.”

“I’m honest. I…I just dreamt it away.”

“It doesn’t work like that. It never works like that. You either have magic, or you don’t.”

“Then,” Harry sounded stronger now. He looked into Draco’s eyes. “I don’t have it. I choose to not have it.”

“Harry…”

Draco’s face was mere inches away from Harry’s as he studied Harry’s green eyes—one real, one painted; one bright and beautiful, the other, ugly and fake. Harry’s breath hitched as their breaths mingled. “Can you take that damn thing off?” Draco’s voice turned shaky too. “I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth.”

“What thing?”

“The thing in your eye.”

Harry had forgotten about the thing—the thing that had made him miserable, made his Draco-eye disappear and tear up. He tried to do as Draco had asked, reaching for his eyeball again with his hands. Draco dragged him up from his seat. “Merlin’s sake, Potter. Wash your hands first.”

Behind him, Harry still looked languid as Draco manhandled him to the sink. He stumbled a little, and I leaned across the counter and scrambled for the tap, made sure the stream of water was as gentle, as soothing as could be. The glass came out then, and twirled down the drain in a whirlpool of soap bubbles while Draco stared into Harry’s eyes, his plush mouth open in a surprised, happy _o_. “Greg wasn’t joking about the grey.”

Harry smiled back—a small, genuine smile.

But Draco’s smile didn’t stay long. Realisation dawned on him as he looked at the box on the table, then, at Harry again. He pointed at the memory of the glass in the sink, the bubbles left behind popping to their demise, one by one. “They sent you this, with the clothes.”

Harry’s smiled faded.

“You put it on.” Draco pursed his lips. “They sent it to you and you put it on.”

He stared at Harry for another long moment. Maybe he could see the truth, in Harry and his loss of magic, for then, he let out something like a lion’s roar—I’d never imagined Draco capable of making a sound like that—and he shoved Harry against the counter behind him. Harry turned boneless the same instant, like he’d been waiting for this, like he’d forfeited his choice to say no before they even got started, as Draco pushed him to sit on the surface with one hand and tore off his joggers with the other. I clambered away just in time to miss the vase tipping over, the water and hellebores spreading everywhere the silver ray from the moon could reach. Harry’s legs splayed open.

Draco fell on his knees the third time this evening. He reached for Harry’s length and took it in his mouth.

Harry’s mouth opened to a silent moan, his thighs fell wider. Draco’s mouth didn’t linger on Harry’s cock for long. It slid downwards, down past the balls and the taint, down into the cleft between Harry’s buttocks until it reached the hidden hole within. Draco was rough, nipping and biting on Harry’s skin, while his hands pushed hard against the back of Harry’s thighs, folding Harry in half. Harry, meanwhile, remained acquiescent, accepting and opening himself for everything Draco had offered. He raked Draco’s hair with his fingers but applied no force, offered no hint to where he’d wanted Draco to go.

Draco wiped his mouth. He looked up and stared at Harry’s face—at Harry’s eerily calm face, the blissful smile burnt on his lips. Without warning, he yanked hard on Harry’s legs and shoved Harry all the way back. Harry’s head hit the wall behind him with a loud bang.

Still, Harry gave away nothing, nothing but the eerie, blissful smile, even with his neck craned so awkwardly against the wall. Draco hovered above him and stared at Harry again, at the face that seemed to lie, almost convincingly, that Harry was getting exactly what he wanted. Draco gritted his teeth and charged again. He twisted Harry’s arms above his shoulders; they, too, had nowhere to rest on the counter, so Draco forced them to crook at the elbows, the wrists; he forced Harry’s legs into a V so wide that I could hear the crack of Harry’s joints. The hellebores broke into petals as Draco laid himself above Harry and ground down hard. Harry’s every joint bent further, cracked louder.

And through it all, Draco trained his eyes on Harry’s face, while he treated Harry more and more like a lamb to be slaughtered. He teased Harry but offered no pleasure; his tongue had never entered Harry, and his cock remained in his jeans, the buttons and zip of which stayed neatly in place…

From above the clock, I peered at the shadows between Draco’s legs, the whirlpool of his water magic sitting low in his belly. Not once did he touch himself there, palm it through the fabric...

He was in pain too, in his own way.

It was a fight, I realised. I was watching a fight, and I couldn’t read it at all. My face flushed and I crossed my legs, ashamed of the dampness building in between…

“Please, Draco,” Harry whispered, finally.

Draco let out a breath, like he’d been waiting for this word for a lifetime. His grip on Harry loosened. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Anything,” Harry whispered, his grey eye still red around the iris. The piece of green glass was long gone, and yet, the memory of its presence hadn’t subsided.

Draco was staring at the red too. “Say it,” he hissed between his teeth. “Say what you want.”

“Anything.”

_Anything._

_Anything._

Draco couldn’t get another answer from Harry. At each repetition of _anything_ , Draco looked colder; at every _please_ that soon dotted the _anything_ s, his face hardened some more. When apologies began interlacing the _anything_ s and _please_ s, Draco pulled away, but not before he showed his teeth and scraped them against Harry’s cock…

Harry let out a choke. His throat bobbled, but he swallowed that sound, too. “Please,” his voice cracked, as Draco’s mouth left him. _“_ Please, Draco, I…”

Draco got on his feet. Harry’s limbs uncoiled at the loss of his force, but his legs remained lifted, and his arse, spread obscenely wide. Draco backed away, one foot after the other, his eyes remained trained on Harry until, once again, he stood on the same spot he’d presided over the kitchen as a petty thief, the dark patch on his jeans on display under the moonlight.

“I used to think,” he said quietly, “that I was the coward, the weak one.”

Harry turned to him, his neck still craned.

“Look at you now.” Draco’s smirk was too subdued, too forlorn. “You lost your magic because you’re afraid. Didn’t young Longbottom lose his magic because he was afraid too? The difference is, he was a child, and he was afraid of living up to the name of two powerful wizards. While you are a powerful wizard—about the most powerful out there—hero, Head Auror—and you’re afraid of, quite simply, living.”

He shoved his hands into his pocket. His skin was bright and shadowy like the moon itself, and like, I remembered, the rings. Harry’s legs fell onto the counter and dangled from the edge. His cock softened between his thighs.

“You’re so scared. So scared of walking away from the people who don’t love you. You’d rather give up your magic than to have to make a choice between them, versus someone who does love you.” Draco closed his eyes; Harry did too, on the counter. “Isn’t it convenient then, that the right excuse surfaced at the right time for you to escape this choice? Kate needed help; you sacrificed for her. Potter, saving the day again. No wonder everyone looked like the worst person in the world around you.”

Draco strode to the window. His irises threatened to fade in the moonlight when I heard the first _drip_ of his magic. The first, lonely raindrop falling into a sea.

“The irony is this: Harry Potter knows how to choose; it’s down in the history books. You choose the right thing, when it’s the life, the happiness of others at stake. You chose the right thing for me; you got me out of the rotten crates. But when it’s _your_ life, _your_ happiness, you don’t choose. You let other people bear the pain of choosing right, the sins of choosing easy, the risks of choosing…a choice. And here’s the other irony—call it the icing on the top, if you will—people who’re bad at choices are lining up to make these choices for you. People like _them_ , people like me.” He chuckled bitterly. “And so, Harry Potter, famous for making choices, gets to avoid making choices for his own life, his own happiness. And so he, famous for his courage, gets to keep hiding. Yes, Harry, you hide as much as I did. You hide in this cottage in the middle of nowhere. You hide behind Hermione. And now, you’re hiding behind your arse. Masochism is never your thing, but now, you’re playing a special _come-hole_ for me, because you want another choice about your life, your happiness made for you. How I fuck you—if I fuck you—will decide where we—where our lives, your life, our happiness, your happiness—will go from here.”

Draco let out a shaky breath. “You’d argue, of course. You’d say it wasn’t your intention. You’d say, you’ve given up choosing your own life, your own happiness because you’re destined to do one thing. You’re destined to catch our fall, and without you, we’d break. But I promise you, none of us are going to break. _They_ won’t, and I won’t. Because unlike you, we’re bendable. That’s what a flexible spine of morals and principles is for.” A lopsided smile, with the same mixture of defeat and pride he’d shown on his first night here, lifted his mouth. “All of us out there—yes, that includes me, especially me—are stronger than you that way. We’re not the weaklings in this world. Quite the contrary.”

“But you got one thing right,” he tilted his chin then, his pride edging out his defeat as he talked to the moon. “I, Draco Malfoy, do need you, Harry Potter, to catch my fall. Because while _they_ ’ll fall for the next beautiful man with the nice robes, the next bobblehead-worthy figure, the next hero, the next you, I’m no good at doing that. I’m no good at falling for anyone else.”

Harry’s chest heaved. The air warmed as he straightened and sat up slowly, his muscles flexing under his T-shirt. The petals of hellebores dried and curled, unpeeled themselves from his skin. The kitchen was kindling a fire magic, but the magic wasn’t from me, or from him.

I traced the drop of sweat rolling down my body, and pressed my back against the wall. The house was warming up, I realised, from the beams, the pillars built with Harry’s magic, his love.

His gaze at Draco was so, so warm.

“Greg said I pushed you too far. He said I loathe it when others treat you as a superhuman but I’m the guiltiest of it myself. I know I’m trying to bend an unbendable spine. But tell me, Harry, that I haven’t been trying in vain.” Draco backed away from the window then, past the centre of the kitchen into the shadows by the threshold. “If you choose me, if you want me, even if you only want a drop of my come and only for tonight, you come over here to get it.” With a twist of his fingers, he unfastened the button of his jeans, let it fell on the floor and stepped out of it. He wasn’t wearing pants. “I can’t make things any easier for you. I’ve invited myself into this very kitchen, stolen from it, defaced it, fucked in it, done everything short of swallowing it, swallowing you with it together. I don’t even have my wand with me tonight because I thought, I fantasised, that it’d give you more choices to do whatever you want with me. Make it sweeter for me because you choose. We haven’t seen each other for months.”

He wrapped his palm around his cock and started stroking himself, slowly, measuredly. Pre-come soon dripped onto the floor, liquid sand of an erratic hourglass counting time to Harry saying something, doing anything. “Why let me follow you here after the Ministry banquet?” Draco whispered. “Why show yourself, your cottage to me when I’d choose to want them, and they wouldn’t choose to want me?” He dug his thumb into the swollen head of his cock, briefly cutting off the line of liquid dangling from it, and closed his eyes. “Honest answer only.”

The clear drops turned into threads. Harry remained quiet and still on the counter.

I closed my eyes too, the petal of hellebore stuck on Harry’s shoulder the last thing I saw.

 _It’s over_ , I thought. _It’s over._

But the air, the warmth in the kitchen vibrated. Harry’s voice was soft, but firm. “I chose to want a home.”

My eyes flew open, and so did Draco’s. His wrist froze. His whole body froze. He stared at Harry.

Harry’s eyes were blazing now, in green and silver fires. He hopped off the counter, and approached Draco in strides. “I chose to want a home, and I chose to want it with you. I chose to build it with you.” He stopped in front of Draco, and the fires in his eyes leapt into Draco’s silver ones. “Was our home calling for you all these months?”

Draco’s didn’t miss the “our” in Harry’s question. He closed his eyes again, as the seas in his magic parted. The drizzle of his magic danced on the beams, the pillars, creating little splashes, little fireworks of water on the wood. “Yes,” he whispered.

That was the last thing both could say for a while. Harry fell on his knees before Draco, his gaze turning into embers again, glowing but controlled, as his hand gently pried Draco’s away from his cock and he took the hard length deep into his mouth, all the way down to its root.

Draco cried out and came. Harry’s throat bobbed violently and made loud, gurgling noises. A long string of saliva dangled between his mouth and Draco’s cock when Harry pulled away. He broke the string with a finger as he wiped his mouth, its corners white with come, and he fed his fingers between his lips.

Draco blinked, his soft mouth opened. That was all the time he had before Harry stood, pushed him back and slammed him against the stove, against the flames I still had lit. I let out a gasp, hopped off the clock and turned the tap full on, directed the water to extinguish the fire. The arc was perfect, like a rainbow, like Harry had expected it to be useful one day. The metal hissed, steam mushroomed and filled the room and in the haze, I saw Harry kissing Draco.

I’d seen them kiss before, of course. The times I’d told you about; those were few. Most often, I’d seen them kiss when Draco came home and Harry was already preparing dinner at the counter. Draco would offer a soft peck on Harry’s ear while Harry whispered something inconsequential, like “Hey” or “You’re back”, his eyes still trained at his task at hand. I knew that, because I’d complained that they didn’t kiss nearly enough, and their kisses, not nearly romantic enough…

Brad had peered at me and my pout, his mouth curved in amusement. _You should stop peeking at the Daily Romance section on the_ Prophet, he’d said.

 _But they line the compost bin with them_ , I’d protested.

Which, according to Brad, was exactly why I should stop peeking at the Daily Romance section of the _Prophet_. Harry and Draco weren’t the most romantic of humans, I’d accepted that much, and the kiss unfolding in front of me confirmed just that. A blister was forming on Draco’s right palm; his hand, seeking purchase to counter the strength, the force that was Harry, had landed on a still hot burner bracket. Harry hadn’t given in though; instead, he’d seized the opportunity to secure Draco between himself and the oven door. His mouth silenced Draco’s painful gasp, and he stole all the air along with it until Draco could afford no more fight in him. Limb by limb, Draco surrendered control. His arms went slack first, and he would have toppled soon after, if not for Harry’s thigh pinning him in place, grinding into him at the V between his weak, opened thighs.

Harry made a noise like triumph when Draco’s jumper came off. The two mouths briefly separated and I saw it again, the essence, the beauty, the confusion and frustration that was Harry and Draco. I saw Harry gasping for breath, gasping for Draco before Draco shoved his tongue back into Harry’s mouth again, and Harry sucked on it like a lifeline while the rest of him still had Draco trapped in place…

I couldn’t tell who had an upper hand. I couldn’t tell who was the stronger one when they finally fell on the floor, Harry straddling Draco. He lifted his hard cock out of the way, and tried to push Draco’s barely hard one into himself. _Wait,_ Draco choked out, _I just—_ and Harry swore, lifted himself off Draco. He crawled on his fours to the cabinet, but couldn’t find—couldn’t see the bottle of oil in the dark, amidst the lingering steam. He swore again, crawled over to the table, pressed his palm against the box and shoved.

Things spilled, the ugly remains of his life assigned by _them_ —the empty box, the shattered glass, the rags of his designer clothes. Harry dug among the stained shoes for the yet un-shattered potion bottles, shaking and squinting at the contents until he found the one he was looking for. He slid back to Draco’s side, making swipes of beautiful colours behind his knees. In the moonlight, his eyes were blazing again as he pulled Draco towards him, squeezed the gel from the bottle and swiped his palm on Draco’s abdomen, all the way down to Draco’s cock; he leaned forward and sucked on Draco’s sharp collar bone as he spread Draco’s legs open, circled Draco’s rim with his fingers and pushed one inside.

Draco accommodated Harry with no more than a bite on his lip, his back curved into a prideful arch. Harry pushed Draco back onto the floor with his free hand.

 _I want every drop of you_ , Harry whispered.

Draco responded with another bite on his lip, his chin held high. He gasped when Harry’s finger started to move.

Harry charged on, his wrist bent and his finger prodding, rubbing inside Draco. One finger became two fingers; two became three. His other hand moved between Draco’s abdomen and his perineum, holding him in place, pressing against the smooth skin in sync with the rocking of his fingers. Waves of convulsions soon rolled along Draco’s muscles. Draco trembled and kicked, his cock jumping to the beat of Harry’s fingers. It was only half hard, but it was leaking, long lines of fluid broken only by the dance of his cock.

And it kept leaking.

Clouds moved in to cover the moon while Draco’s eyes got lost behind his eyelids, while his legs flailed and buckled to what appeared to be orgasm after orgasm. Even in the shadows, he looked like a burning artwork—his ample emissions pooled on his flushed skin, with the colours that’d crept up from under Harry’s knees and painted his ribs. He choked out his heartaches between his climaxes—why hadn’t Harry gone look for him? Owled him, at least? Ambushed him in George’s flat? Or in Hogsmeade as he’d done before, just to make Draco dessert, to show Draco his worth—and Harry answered not to a single question with words, but with more relentless movement of his fingers, more bruising kisses on Draco’s lips, until Draco, too, had no more words left in him. He croaked, his throat drying out like the rest of him—milked dry by Harry and his want…

At the first crack of Draco’s parched lips, Harry slowed the rocking of his fingers. His hand on Draco’s abdomen moved down gently to wrap around Draco’s cock, and he stroke it until it got hard again—very hard, its length a deep, angry pink, its veins protruding from the smooth skin.

 _I want every drop of you_ , he whispered again.

Draco couldn’t hear him this time. His gaze was diffused, his mind already lost as he quaked in yet another wave of ecstasy. Harry pulled out his fingers and straddled him once more, pushed Draco’s hard length into himself. He winced, closed his eyes and clenched his jaws. He hadn’t prepared himself, I remembered. He started riding Draco ruthlessly, while Draco was little more than a rag doll under him, a _come giver_ , yielding, giving in to Harry’s want…

Beneath and above them, the cottage remained perfectly still, at peace with this latest clash of fire and water. Its foundation collected the power, the colours, transferred them along the beams and pillars to my cheeks, my neck, my shoulders…

I cupped the swell of my breast and pushed my fingers between my thighs.

Who was more guilty? More guiltless? I couldn’t think, couldn’t tell anymore as I bit my lip, pressure and pleasure building inside me. Who loved more? Who was more loved? Who won? Who lost?…

When Harry shouted and came, Draco was a drained heap on the floor. I collapsed against the wall behind me, blinking at the glistening shadow between my thighs. Harry panted for a long moment on Draco’s lap, before he smiled, swiped his palm on the many hues on Draco’s ribs and brought them upward, up along Draco’s bony sternum, his long neck and his sharp jaw, and cupped Draco’s pink, soft cheek with it. Draco leaned into the touch, the wild colours; he smiled back, his eyelids already shuttering. Harry lifted himself off Draco and stood, opened his palm and the umber dress robe, the only thing left unsullied in the kitchen, slipped from the chair and glided gracefully through the air into his grasp. He wrapped it around Draco and carried him, like a prince carried a princess, out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

It would take sunrise, and me, staring at my reflection on the shiny new pipes, to see that the blush on my face and my chest weren’t about to fade anytime soon. I was blooming with colours, and I grinned at Brad, who was frowning, playing with the tips of his hair that had turned more pink than strawberry overnight. It was then when I realised what Harry’s last act in the kitchen had been, and what it’d taken.

Pure, pure magic.

 

 


	14. Elemental

A flurry of events has happened since then, brilliantly matched to the chirping of the birds, the petals of flowers that fluttered with the spring breeze outside.

First, about Hermione. The special edition of the _Prophet_ didn’t arrive that evening, after all. Instead, the morning paper was thick as Elaine’s recipe book, with the same, leaf after leaf of haphazardly-added information. _Granger Suspended!_ it screamed, above a smirking Hermione surrounded by cameras. She’d spelled potted plants up a pair of reporters, who’d asked how Harry’s loss of magic would affect his sex life. “Leaves all intact,” she announced proudly as she stepped through the kitchen threshold the following evening, her pumps kicked off somewhere already, her peacock-blue robe dangling on her finger.  

That evening didn’t end the most pleasantly, though. Hermione learned that Harry had actually lost his magic, if only for a few days. I can't say I was sorry to miss the hours-long lecture in the living room, but Draco seemed to enjoy every minute of it, wearing far too smug a smile as he ran the tap to replenish Hermione’s water supply. He downed a glass himself, and when I lined up the beads of water into question mark—the first time I’d shown myself to him since the proposal—he winked and replied, simply, _Comeuppance_.

The next morning, the _Prophet_ screamed _Granger Quits!!_ , while Harry rubbed the small bruises along his neck, and Draco winced as he fidgeted on the chair. So Harry had received some comfort for the lecture after all, and Draco, a lesson or two for his smugness.

Brad, meanwhile, grumbled about his scarlet-tipped hair.

It wasn’t the only thing on him that was…a little scarlet at the tip that morning. _But your arm_ , he said, when, with the sunbeam in the attic as witness, I invited him to enter me once more. It’d been so long. I rolled my hips, the way I’d learned from Harry the other night, and it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. We almost fell off the beam and I chuckled, he did too and we tried again. It felt like new, him inside me, and it was, his body moving against my own warmer and more fluid than it’d ever been. And I smelled earthy like his skin, and I _was_ earthy. _What about my arm?_ I asked him, circling his neck with my earthiness, when I’d finally had myself seated on him. _I…I forgot_ , he stuttered, before closing his mouth against mine.

Speaking of forgetfulness, the chickens weren’t so quick to forget, or forgive, Draco’s long absence. The big Chickens, in particular, refused to meet Draco in the eye when they had their Easter treat in the kitchen, a confetti of grains, flutterby berries and seeds on Draco’s palm. Draco fumed, until he found an egg in the coop that evening. Mrs Chicken hadn’t laid since some people had visited the Manor years ago—the same people who’d blinded Mr Chicken’s feathers. Draco pretended to not care about the egg, but came down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. _Can’t sleep_ , he confessed, as he started to make a nest out of his old nightshirt. _For the peachick_. When Harry found Draco in the kitchen later, he examined the nest and without a word, picked up Draco’s wand and whispered a few spells. He linked Draco’s hand with his own and pressed both into the cotton cloud, soft and impossibly plush like Draco’s lips when he stared at Harry, his mouth opened in a small _o_. The mouth Harry soon captured with his own.

They spent the rest of the night here, kissing. Maybe they’re all right kissers after all. Harry, he likes to lick between kisses, the tip of his tongue tracing Draco’s soft lips and grazing the furrow under his mouth, until the lower lip looked even wetter, poutier than before. Draco, he likes to bite, and he likes to call Harry names. _Git. Prat. Imbecile. Dimwit. Cretin. Oaf._ He says them like he finds it regretful that Harry is every one of these things, but he wants him regardless.

And sometimes, after Draco has said his piece several times, Harry would say _Git_ back, smiling, his voice husky, as he catches his breath. He always looks into Draco’s eyes when he does so.

I realised, these words are their _I love you_ ’s.

I told you, Harry and Draco aren’t the romantic type, didn’t I?

Their magic, wild as they can be, have been balancing out each other’s. Whatever sparks Harry has let trail him, whatever drizzle Draco has let fall, they find solace and each other in the airy spaces between the beams and pillars. They find a home, a place to settle and rely on, on the foundation of rocks below us.

How do I know? Well, sometimes, I get to catch them with my hands. My clay hand prefers the sparks—I think it always will—while my other hand closes around the water drops. They fall like lava rain in a snow shower, and they’re so beautiful to look at. And the best thing is, Brad gets to watch them with me. _Alfred's and Elaine’s magic were never this showy_ , he said, the first time he watched, with what could best be described as a petulant pout. He was right. Alfred's and Elaine’s magic simply blended into the cottage—the wood and stones, the air we all breathed.

 _Do you still miss them?_ I asked. Brad stayed quiet for a while, and I understood. I miss Alfred and Elaine too. And I’ll miss them, always. _But I’ll miss this too_ , Brad whispered, hugging me closer from behind. _Even if it’s a_ _fire hazard. And the potential water damage…_ His grumbling was lost in a kiss on the back of my head. I grinned, turned my head in search for his next kiss, and agreed.

This peace may not last for long. The cottage seems to undergoing yet another transformation, the kind only we spirits can tell. Brad and I have been feeling tingles in our magic, like something invisible is tugging at us, trying to catch our attention. It’s hard to tell for sure what’s happening, but we got a hint the other day. While I was greeting the chickens as usual, they jumped, and started pecking on the oven door. “You can talk?” one asked. “'Morning!” one shouted. “My name is Scazza!” tweeted the third.

I really need to brush up my chicken speak, if a baby chick spirit is coming to the coop soon. Draco will have a hard time talking to the baby spirit, won’t he? And Harry won’t be of much help either…

Yes! Harry will be working at Draco’s farm. For a year, to start—Draco has agreed to let Harry decide what he’ll want to do for his career after then. Harry’s resignation made headlines, of course, not that Harry or Draco read the drivel that came with it. But Draco did clip out the photo, of Harry wearing a scowl worthy of Candid Harry and shaking hands with the newly re-elected Minister. He pinned it above the Sexy Harry showing a sliver of ankle from a broken boot, and took a quill, drew a pair of Cornish pixies twisting the Minister’s ears, then, a pair of miniature Ministers twisting the pixies’ ears, and then, another four pixies twisting each of the two mini-Ministers’ ears, and on and on...

On Harry, he drew a kiss on the cheek with his own lips.

“My face is gonna mould,” Harry said, chuckling, wiping off his smoothie moustache with his hand. A dollop of froth painted his nose.

“Not with this,” Draco whispered, while cleaning up the dollop with licks and fondness. He dabbed more strawberry wax on his mouth, using a makeshift lipstick he’d made with the strawberry juice left from breakfast. “Professor Snape taught us how—”

He planted another kiss on Harry—the real Harry, this time—while Harry looked scandalised. He’d spend the next hour trying to interrogate a truth out of Draco— _Did Professor Snape really teach you how to make lipsticks?_

Draco’s lips were sealed, with more mischief than wax. George was called to the cottage to testify.

 _Yes_ , George answered with a frown. He'd brought with him macarons and elderflowers, and he laid down a branch of the latter, freshly fried and sprinkled with sugar, on Harry’s and Draco’s plates, like the dessert would stop silly children like Harry and Draco asking sillier questions. _Didn’t Mc…McGonagall give you date… dating lessons?_

Harry choked on the fritter in his mouth. He guffawed, fire-called Hermione and Ron, who fire-called Another George and Ginny, who fire-called Luna and Neville and Dean and Seamus and…I lost count. The sun sailed and sank as I practiced making alphabets out of my stovetop flames, as I sketched hearts and flowers and baby chicks. Fizzy water ran from the taps, from the laughter I thought I could hear from the living room—bubbles of happiness that went well with the wine Neville had conjured, I reckoned. At some point, Hermione and Ron stumbled into the kitchen, their hands damp from what had to be a joined trip to the loo. Hermione was stuffing Ron’s shirttail into his jeans while Ron smoothed Hermione’s skirt. _We should do this often_ , Ron remarked with the goofiest grin. Harry and Draco followed their footsteps no more than an hour later, staggering into the scene in a similar state of … disheveledness, Harry wearing the most ridiculous spectacles I’d ever seen—round, framed with thick, black plastic, like the ones on the Quidditch cartoon he’d drawn—and Draco, staring at them like he’d never seen anything more beautiful, more glorious in his life. He grabbed Harry by the arms and pressed strawberry smudges all over the lens—he hadn’t stopped dabbing the strawberry wax on his lips all day—until Harry had to take the spectacles off and look for his old pair again, his hair sticking out in every direction from Draco’s passionate grip.

I sat on the counter, dangling my legs, watching the lovebirds come and go. I chuckled at Draco, at his furious wine blush and awkwardly raised arse, as he lazed against the sink and tried futilely to scrub the round spectacles clean with water. I took pity on him when I remembered how he was like with precious things, how he wouldn’t touch them with magic, and scooted over, gave the detergent pump a small pat. He hummed happily at the drop of goo, and grinned from ear to ear when the goo carried away the wax he’d so desperately tried to rid off. This was the same Draco who’d fixed the decades-old butter churn in the cabinet. I grinned from ear to ear too, with him.

The calendar on the wall beckoned our attention then, with the flutter of its page. Midnight had just passed. The April page swung upward, felt the photo of Harry and the Minister in its way, and beat it until the pin came off. The page retired in its rightful place as the photo slipped onto the counter. May had arrived.

May’s Sexy Harry showed off only his mouth, the rest of his face concealed under an oversized cape. Behind him was a warehouse…I hopped off the counter and approached the photo. Were those...Muggle firearms behind him? What were those round, thatchy things with a lever on top? I covered my mouth at the yellow and black tape. Was it a _crime scene_?

Draco stumbled over too, his hand still dripping with water and detergent. He didn’t notice the long metal things, the mysterious tubs or the holes in the wall, or anything else, really; all he had eyes for were Sexy Harry’s lips. He stared at them while patting himself, leaving wet handprints all over his shirt and trousers until he found his lipstick again, and he smudged it all over his mouth with his slippery, drunk hands. Then, he started pressing kisses all over Sexy Harry’s lips, and when those lips became red as his own, he started kissing the oversized cape. When Sexy Harry became indistinguishable from the rose macarons George had brought over, he started kissing the rest of the page, the blank squares with numbers unmarked by circles…

And that was the state of Draco when Harry found him again. Harry, a little unsteady on his feet too, crossed the threshold and smiled at the calendar…

Draco turned at the sound of his entrance. Harry blinked at Draco’s face, at his clown lips with lipstick everywhere…and he started laughing. He laughed and laughed and laughed before he sped to Draco’s side, lifted Draco in his arms and twirled him and kissed him hard, his not-so-sober feet bringing them on to every tile of the kitchen. Draco wrapped his limbs around Harry, yelping, protesting, slurring something about dignity and Malfoy decorum…

I laughed at their silly dance and marked the calendar date in my head. The date I knew, finally and for sure, that Harry and Draco were happy. The date that, for the first time in so many decades, the owners of the house I lived in, the house I took care of, were happy. I shed my memory of Elaine’s lonely dance on these same floor tiles, her only company a joy that’d once been. I left the memory in the care of the pillars and beams, strong enough to accommodate the oldest magic, the recollections good and bad; I asked them to take good care of it…

My eyes welled up, and soon, I was bawling. The pipes held, I checked frantically as I tried to wipe my eyes dry—I couldn’t spoil this happy moment—and the taps…I thought water would gush out, but it was running in a stream, smooth and gentle, making the most perfect tinkling sound as it hit the sink below. It sounded like my tears were singing, and what I was feeling, their song. The song was a little sad this time, a little maudlin, but for the most part, it was happy. Had Harry thought of that too, when he’d rebuilt the kitchen? That I could find a way to express myself with the music in water? From the way he was grinning, swaying with his arm wrapped around his tipsier, dizzier Draco, I thought he had.

And they weren’t the only people with someone to lean on. I felt a touch on my shoulder. Shocked, I turned and found Brad behind me. “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking alarmed, utterly unaware that he was standing right across from me in the kitchen, in a space that was supposedly forbidden to him…

I threw my arms around him, the clay one a little mushy from all the tears I'd smeared against it. “You’re here,” I exclaimed, crying, holding him tight. “You’re here.”

He patted me, and I told him how much I love him. I told him again and again. He smiled, looking relieved and happy and a little confused. “Could you…” he gave me another pat and pulled away just a smidge so he got my attention. “Could you switch out of chicken speak for a moment, Kate?”

_Oops._

Yes, there’s love in the air, in the earth under our feet, and in the fire and water. On some nights, Harry and Draco still sleep in the kitchen, usually after Draco has found himself here again before daybreak, making things, breaking even more. On these nights, Harry would cast something soft and plush for them to lie on, and Draco would fall onto it, with a mischievous hop and spread-eagle, before coiling up with a pillow in his arms. No, he wouldn’t grind into the pillow anymore; he’d no longer need to try, futilely, to ground himself to the house. Instead, he would tell stories, and Harry would listen.

He would start with a hum, and his voice would be soft, so soft that his syllables would be slurred in places. His tone would be so playful that Harry would keep asking him if he was joking, to which he’d always answer yes, he was. He’d tell the stories of house spirits, the legend of a terrible, terrible betrayal. Not terrible for the Malfoys, mind, but for a certain family whose surname started with “P” and was really, really into the business of stalking…

 _You’re making it up_ , Harry would say.

 _Most definitely_ , Draco would reply, squeeze the pillow under his head, and wink at Harry.

Those traitorous house spirits, he’d go on, give rise to many, many more, feeding on the love of their new humans in a glorious manor ( _such freeloaders_ , Draco would comment with a dramatic shake of head). The house spirits and their descendants would stay with the Malfoys for many generations to come, because, Draco would say, brushing his fringe back, the Malfoys were simply too charming compared to the wizards in the spirits’ original homes. _Because the spirits have learned loyalty,_ Harry would argue, enunciating _LOYALTY_ into Draco’s ear. _Nay_ , Draco would say. _Taste, that was what they’d learned. And the Malfoys, should I emphasise, are really, really good looking._

Harry would roll his eyes, and Draco would laugh, and Harry would grab the pillow and hit Draco with it.

And Draco would catch Harry by his wrist. His laughter would subside then, the moment when his eyes and Harry’s would meet in the moonlight. He would hold up Harry’s ring and his own, align the circles in the air and ask Harry to look through them together, into the stars blinking, sparkling outside the window. _See the runes?_ He’d ask, and Harry would nod. _This story, it isn’t in the books. These rings were forged with love, and left in the crypt so the Malfoys could tell their children, and their children’s children, that their ancestors had laid down the rings like they’d laid down themselves. But these rings were really our gifts to them, a_ thank you _for all the love the family had given us. It'd made us who we were, even if they’d brushed us off and called our kind traitors…_

 _Draco?_ Harry would turn to Draco, looking confused, then alarmed.

_Do you know how happy we are to have this home? Finally, no more guilt…_

_Draco?_ Harry would ask again. _What are you…who are “we”?_

Draco would jolt to Harry’s question. He would let go of the rings and say, _I was just making things up_. And he would mean it, wouldn’t remember a thing he’d said come five o’clock, come sunrise…

Oh, I’ve forgotten to tell you how the rings returned to Harry and Draco, haven’t I? Nonono, it _was_ important! It’s just that…there isn’t much to tell, I’m afraid. The day after his friends had come over, Harry simply pulled out one of the chains from his pocket, stepped behind Draco on his way to the icebox, and slipped it down onto Draco’s neck—as unceremoniously as the way Draco had slipped one down onto his neck months ago. Draco didn’t say anything; he was reading Harry’s notebook, the Quidditch fantasy team Harry had built under the scribbles of a never-made speech. It’d take a stack of pancakes in the pan, and Harry’s attention lost in the pancakes, and a confirming glint from the chain already hanging down from Harry’s neck, for his lips to finally curve into a smile, and his hand, perfectly hidden behind the notebook, to follow the silver chain down to the ring and close around it.

I heard the music in his water magic then. His song of love, sung at the top of his voice—his magical voice—while the not-so-magical part of him narrowed his eyes, picked up a quill, and start drawing his revenge beside the poor, swearing bloke who’d fallen off the broom.

 

 


	15. Epilogue: Kate and the House (Reprise)

So, this is the story about Harry and Draco, and about me, in many ways. And Brad and Alfred and Elaine. I’m so sorry I kept going off tangents! I’m serious when I said if I were to tell the whole story of this cottage, it’d take at least a century. It’s a poor habit, I know, me and my babbling, and I have no excuse for it. The only defence I have is that I’m really, really excited, and more than a little nervous too. I don’t think I’ll sleep much tonight, if at all.

You see, tomorrow is the big day. No, not the kind of big day you’re thinking of. No wedding bells yet, and I wouldn’t expect any without the cottage being turned upside down again in some way. I’m still a smidge afraid of those house spirits Draco carries with him, you know? But the upside down thing…it may happen sooner than expected—as soon as tomorrow, in fact, because tomorrow, we’re moving. Since Harry will be working at Eltanin Harvests too, it makes little sense for the pair of them to Apparate miles to work, and hike the distance between home and the nearest Apparition point every day.

The plan is, therefore, to fly the cottage to the farm.

George grumbled a little about it, needless to say. _Why can’t they do…do things in the right order?_ he asked, while he and Ron thought of ways to stabilise the mud layers already clinging to the foundation. The earth is old, you see, and it, too, gravitates towards a home fortified with ancient magic. _Because they’re our mates, mate_ , Ron replied sympathetically, as he made a fresh knot on the net that was tough for George’s large hands to handle. Hermione was working on getting the magic to ventilate between spaces, so the house will remain balanced when it flies. She tickled me—and that was when I found out how precise and controlled her magic really was—and used my giggles for turbulence testing. Molly and Andromeda were here too, securing the furniture in the house, and I got to see the albino mokeskin satchel again. _Keep it safe_ , Andromeda said, conjuring a new string and tying it on Harry’s neck. _Memories, they’re fragile as they’re precious_. Molly brought with her a new clock, a wooden one that tells both time and the whereabouts of Harry and Draco. Harry thanked her and hung it up immediately, but as soon as nobody was watching, Draco took it down and began to fiddle with it, poking his wand here and there and spelling his usual, abysmal homemaking spells until neither location needles could point at “Mortal Danger” anymore. _Shhh_. He put his finger against his lips, after I drew an exclamation mark on his glass of ice water. His eyes were so soft, so bright and hopeful that I nodded my promise, even though he couldn’t see me, even though I knew—and he must too—that just because the needles couldn’t point to “Mortal Danger” didn’t mean Harry and Draco would forever be exempt from it. Teddy came along too and played chicken with the Chickens to keep them distracted. The egg in the cotton nest was about to hatch, Harry had told him, and he stared at it while nursing a Muggle yoghurt cup and licking on the plastic spoon—he loved that goo, apparently—until Draco insisted it was made of germs...

It was busy and wonderful, the preparation. Harry and Draco were forbidden to do much by their friends and family—they had to preserve their magic for the move. There's one task they’ve refused to leave to the hands of others though, and that's the task of talking to Brad and I. Last weekend, Draco pulled out a fresh roll of film from Alfred’s camera—he no longer needed Harry to cast the Peruvian Darkness powder this time—and when the darkness dissipated, a string of photos, still dripping with potions at the corners, hung on every wall of the kitchen, creating a panoramic view of rolling hills and brooks and meadows.

I covered my mouth with my hands. Brad let out a gasp too. It was beyond beautiful. It was gorgeous.

“Here’s our farm,” Draco said, pointing at a spot of wild colours amongst the green, at the end of a winding path that snaked through the countryside. I realised, from the intent look in Harry’s green and grey eyes, from the way he hugged his knees a little closer at Draco’s use of “our”, that Harry hadn’t been there before, either—hadn’t Draco once made him promise to never look for him there?—and the move will be as much an adventure to him as to Brad and me.

“Draco will be on a Muggle bicycle, leading the way,” Harry chimed in, his voice as gentle as the breeze caressing the scene. It was a moving photo, I also realised then, its stillness, its peace only the effect of distance and time—“and we’ll be up in the sky, following him…”

So, that’s how I’m imagining things to be like tomorrow. Can you see it too? The cottage, our home, sailing like a kite behind Draco; Harry, tending the chickens in the kitchen, maintaining the height and smoothness of our flight as Brad and I cling to the window, feeling the warm winds of June on our faces as the landscape recedes below us. The green will seem never-ending, the calm, something to be taken for granted, until an uphill climb, a sharp turn, and…

Foxgloves and roses are blooming in the cottage garden, Draco said.

What lies beyond that, I still can’t say. Will Harry enjoy farm life with Draco? Will they have a giant fight again, and will they get a chance to make up? Maybe the wars outside, the tufts of dying grass on the timeline will invade the greens one day. They may force Harry to dress up and do speeches again. They may push Draco to start yet another life anew. I don’t know; the future is not for anyone, even for us house spirits to see. What I do know is that right now, they’re fighting over a bicycle wheel, glowering at each other for one minute and laughing together the next, and they’re as sweet as the treacle tart they just shared. And I’m Kate, the house spirit, watching over them, their home that is mine too, my home that is my fate. I live for the life within—the ups and downs, the hopes and fears, the memories and discoveries—and I love for the love within.

And with Harry and Draco, I’m living, and I’m loving.

 

 

\- _Fin_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on [Livejournal](https://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/158226.html).


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